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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Robert Dex

Taylor Swift says Kim and Kanye feud 'took me to a place I've never been before'

Taylor Swift enjoyed a big night out at the New York premiere of her friend Emma Stone’s latest film after lifting the lid on her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

The star, who was at the screening of Poor Things with friends Suki Waterhouse and Robert Pattinson, spoke out after being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year saying it was so bad it forced her to leave the US.

She told the magazine she felt “my career was taken away from me” at the height of the 2016 feud with the couple who have since split up.

It was the culmination of a long-running row that started in 2009 when West stormed on stage at the MTV awards to interrupt Swift’s acceptance of the Best Female Video to say Beyonce should have won it.

Taylor Swift (TIME / TIME Person of the Year / AFP)

Seven years later he released a song called Famous containing the lyrics “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, why? I made that b**** famous”.

He claimed she approved the words and when she denied it, Kardashian posted a video of a phonecall with her where she seemed to consent to them causing an online backlash before it emerged Swift had not been told all the lines.

She told Time the scandal was “career death” for her, adding “Make no mistake - my career was taken away from me.

“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.

Settlement agreed in Kim Kardashian and Kanye West divorce (PA Archive)

“That took me down psychologically to a place I've never been before. I moved to a foreign country.

“I didn't leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls.”

The Shake It Off singer was recognised by the US magazine after being selected from nine finalists including the King and striking Hollywood performers.

The magazine said: “While her popularity has grown across the decades, this is the year that Swift, 33, achieved a kind of nuclear fusion: shooting art and commerce together to release an energy of historic force.”

Swift has had a huge year kicking off her Eras world tour in March, recording and releasing a concert film and continuing the re-recording of her old music.

This year she released her new version of the 1989 album, first released in 2014, which went to number one and also topped the charts with a re-recording of the 2010 album Speak Now.

Next year, her tour will see her play London as well as cities as far afield as Dublin, Tokyo and Melbourne.

Last year’s Time person of the year was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and previous people to have been given the honour include the late Queen, Pope Francis and US President Joe Biden.

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