Kim Kardashian has put her past differences with Taylor Swift to rest. In fact, she may be a secret Swiftie. When sister Khloe Kardashian asked the SKIMS founder if people would be shocked to know she listens to Taylor's "Anti-Hero" hitmaker's songs in her free time, Kim made it clear that she has nothing but respect for Taylor.
"I have some of her older songs in my playlist," Kim, 44, said on the Jan. 21 episode of the Khloe in Wonder Land podcast. "I've always thought she's like a super talented, great artist." She explained that her fascination with Taylor's earlier tracks stems from her love for country music.
However, the road to musical peace with Taylor has been long and rocky. Though their relationship dates back to the infamous VMAs incident of 2009, it escalated in 2016 when Kim posted footage from a phone call between her then-husband, Kanye West, and Taylor, claiming that Taylor approved explicit lyrics from Kanye's 2016 hit "Famous." In the phone call, it sounds like Taylor gives the okay to the lines "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b---h famous," a point Taylor has refuted, arguing she'd never heard the song and its NSFW lyrics in full.
Upon the release of the full call between Taylor and Kanye, Kim—who split with the rapper in 2021—set out to clear her own name. She wrote on X in March 2020, "Taylor has chosen to reignite an old exchange that at this point feels very self-serving given the suffering millions of real victims are facing right now." She continued, "The only issue I ever had around the situation was that Taylor lied through her publicist who stated that 'Kanye never called to ask for permission...' They clearly spoke so I let you all see that. Nobody ever denied the word 'bitch' was used without her permission."
But Taylor—who is engaged to Travis Kelce—felt that the damage to her reputation had been done. She previously shared insight into the dark period of her life, saying, "You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I've never been before."
"I moved to a foreign country," she continued. "I didn't leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn't trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard."
At the time, the Grammy winner thought the scandal would be the end of her music career, adding, "Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me."
