Kanye West, Taylor Swift Neil Mockford/GC Images ; Aeon/GC Images
It appears that Kanye West might be ready to finally quash the long-held bad blood with Taylor Swift — and it all started with a single social media move.
As of Saturday, February 1, West, 47, is now following Swift, 35, on Instagram. He also shared a screenshot of his “Following” list on his Instagram Stories, noting that Swift is the only one included. (As of Sunday, February 2, West also started following a private account named “eylulrhyme.”)
He later took to the platform to celebrate his 2025 Grammy nomination — also leaving a Swift-themed Easter egg.
“Thank you to the Grammies [sic] for nominating ‘Carnival,’” West captioned a photo of the Grammy trophy, tagging the likes of Swift, Ty Dolla Sign, Playboi Carti, Rich the Kid and the Recording Academy.
West’s “Carnival” is up for “Best Rap Song” at Sunday’s awards show, while Swift scored five nods for her album The Tortured Poets Department and an additional nomination for her and Gracie Abrams’ duet, “us.”
Swift and West go way back to 2009 when the rapper interrupted her MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech, proclaiming that Beyoncé should have taken home the trophy instead. Swift later issued a call for peace in Speak Now’s “Innocent” before West mentioned her by name in “Famous,” citing, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that bitch famous.”
West had claimed that Swift gave him permission to include the vulgar lyric, which she repeatedly vehemently denied. West’s then-wife, Kim Kardashian, subsequently released footage of an alleged phone call between the two Grammy winners that corroborated West’s version of events. It has since come to light that the call was edited.
‘Cause baby we’ve always got bad blood when it comes to Taylor Swift and Kanye West. The duo’s decades-long feud first began in 2009, when West shockingly ambushed Swift as she was receiving the award for Best Female Video during the MTV Video Music Awards. As she began her acceptance speech for “You Belong With Me,” West […]
While speaking to TIME in 2023, Swift referred to the scandal as a “career death.”
“Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me,” the “Fortnight” singer recalled to the outlet in a December 2023 profile. “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.”
Swift continued, “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. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
Kardashian, 44, previously claimed in 2020 that she was compelled to “defend” her then-husband in the heat of the moment. The now-exes, who share four kids, split in 2021.
Swift appeared to close out the feud last year by including “thanK you aIMee” on TTPD, which used capital letters to spell out “Kim.” A bonus version of the track swapped the capital “Kim” for “Ye.” (West has shortened his professional moniker to be “Ye.”)
“Taylor has moved on and is not looking back,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in April 2024. “The song is her final word.”
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