Everyone loves Taylor Swift… or do they? Even though plenty of celebrities turned out to celebrate her marriage to NFL star Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden, she has also endured a fair amount of criticism over the years. Below, check out some of her biggest feuds, featuring everyone from Katy Perry to Donald Trump!
‘Swish Swish, Bish’: The Dancers That Derailed a Friendship
Katy Perry and Taylor Swift have a long history of beef, which seems to have started due to a business dispute over backup dancers. In 2013, Swift was on her Red Tour when three of her backup dancers left midway through to rejoin Katy Perry’s upcoming Prismatic World Tour.
Swift seemed to view the departure as a betrayal and an attempt to sabotage her tour. She said as much in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, claiming that a female artist attempted to “sabotage” her tour. Perry then responded with a cryptic tweet referencing “Regina George in sheep’s clothing,” referring to the “Mean Girls” character.
Swift’s 2014 hit single and music video for “Bad Blood” was widely believed to be about Perry, who responded in 2017 with “Swish Swish.” Things took another turn when Swift returned her catalog to streaming services on the same day that Perry released her album “Witness.”
Perry then expressed a desire to end the feud, saying, “I forgive her, and I’m sorry for anything I ever did.” Just before Swift headed off on her tour for “Reputation,” Perry sent Swift an olive branch along with a handwritten note.
This seemingly ended the feud, as Swift told U.K. radio show Capital Breakfast that they were on the road to repairing their relationship. Perry made a small appearance in Swift’s 2019 “You Need To Calm Down” music video and called her “an old friend” when she attended Swift’s Eras Tour.
‘I’mma Let You Finish…’: The Interruption That Started a Decade-Long Saga
The 2009 MTV VMAs will forever go down as one of the biggest moments in pop culture history, along with Ye’s “I’mma let you finish…” speech. The moment went so viral that even former U.S. President Barack Obama called Kanye West a “jack*ss.”
Ye apologized, and the two publicly reconciled when Swift presented West with the MTV Video Vanguard Music Award. However, their uneasy relationship fell apart during a dispute about his song “Famous,” which seemingly inspired many songs on her album, “Reputation.”
The song included the lyric which included the lyric, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? Because I made that b-tch famous.” A leaked audio recording by his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, made it seem like Swift approved the lyric, leading to even more controversy.
Although Swift and Ye both attended the 2025 Grammy Awards, it looked like they avoided each other.
The Snake Emojis & The Tape: How Kim Kardashian Fueled ‘Reputation’
Although Swift and Kim Kardashian seemed to be on good terms, it all fell apart after the “Famous” controversy.
In a June 2016 interview with GQ, the “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” reality star insisted that Swift had “totally approved” the lyric. Meanwhile, Swift’s team insisted that he had never told her that he would call her a “b-tch” on the song.
After Kardashian released edited clips of their phone call, many started sending the singer snake emojis. The snake symbol became a major part of her “Reputation” tour iconography and her “Look What You Made Me Do” music video.
In March 2020, the full recording of the call leaked, showing that Ye had never asked Swift about the “that b-tch” line. Swift insisted that the leak proved that she had been “telling the truth the whole time,” and in her 2023 TIME Person of the Year interview, called the backlash from the controversy a “career death.”
Although she never confirmed it publicly, many also felt that her song “thanK you aIMee” from “The Tortured Poets Department” was about Kardashian, since the capitalized letters in the song spelled out her first name.
However, in 2026, Kim appeared on her sister Khloé Kardashian’s Khloé in Wonder Land podcast. She called Swift a “super talented, great artist” and revealed that she still listens to some of Swift’s music. She and her daughter, North, have also danced to some of Swift’s music in several TikTok videos.
Nils Sjöberg Speaks: Secret Credits and the Legendary Twitter Rant
2016 was a rough year for Swift! A few weeks after she stopped dating Calvin Harris, Swift made headlines for moving on to Tom Hiddleston soon after the split. It seems that Harris might have taken things personally, as he aired their dirty laundry on Twitter after Swift’s rep confirmed that she had written on “This Is What You Came For,” his collaboration with Rihanna, under the name Nils Sjöberg. That name later appeared on a gravestone in her “Look What You Made Me Do” music video.
On Twitter, Harris explained: “And she sings on a little bit of it too. Amazing lyric writer and she smashed it as usual… I wrote the music, produced the song, arranged it and cut the vocals though. And initially she wanted it kept secret, hence the pseudonym… Hurtful to me at this point that her and her team would go so far out of their way to try and make ME look bad at this stage though…”
He then seemed to reference her new relationship with the “Avengers” actor, adding, “I figure if you’re happy in your new relationship you should focus on that instead of trying to tear your ex bf down for something to do… I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it… Please focus on the positive aspects of YOUR life because you’ve earned a great one… God bless everyone have a beautiful day.”
Miss Americana Enters the Ring: Taylor Swift’s Shift from Pop Star to Political Target
Taylor Swift and Donald Trump have a long history of feuding. During the 2020 election, Swift openly criticized the President on Twitter, “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November.”
In 2024, she openly endorsed Kamala Harris for President on Instagram. In response, Trump said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan. It was just a question of time … She’s a very liberal person, she seems to always endorse a Democrat and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
The Team Trump TikTok account and White House-related accounts have since used Swift’s music in their TikTok videos. In August 2026, Swift’s songs were removed from the videos. Although she did not publicly comment about the use of her songs, artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Ariana Grande have all publicly objected to the use of their music.
