Taylor Swift and Katy Perry's feud was one for the celebrity ages; it led to the iconic Taylor song 'Bad Blood,' and left two passionate fandoms at each other's (metaphorical) throats for years. But what really happened – and are the pair friends now?
Why did Taylor and Katy stop being friends?
The fellow music superstars had long been thought to be friends – Katy performed her single 'Hot N Cold' during a surprise appearance during the 2010 Fearless tour, and they often tweeted at each other.
© Jeff KravitzBut by 2014 it appeared things had changed. Taylor, now 33, released her Grammy-winning album 1989 and the song 'Bad Blood' was revealed to be about another female artist in the industry, and not an ex-boyfriend.
"For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not," Taylor told Rolling Stone. "She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, 'Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?'"
Taylor then revealed that the unnamed adversary's actions left them as "straight-up enemies," claiming that her enemy had "tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I'm surprisingly non-confrontational—you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So, now I have to avoid her. It's awkward, and I don't like it."
Although neither party named the other, the next day Katy, now 38, tweeted: "Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing...", and later added: "If somebody is trying to defame my character, you're going to hear about it."
What did Katy Perry say about her feud with Taylor Swift?
Katy confirmed their feud in 2017 during an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden. "Honestly, it's really like she started it and it's time for her to finish it," Katy said, before sharing her own side of the story.
"Okay, so there was like three backing dancers that went on tour with her tour (sic), right? And they asked me before they went on tour if they could go, and I was like, 'Yeah, of course. I'm not on a record cycle and get the work, and she's great and all that.
"But I will be on a record cycle probably in about a year. So, be sure to put a 30-day contingency in your contract, so you can get out if you want to join me when I say I'm going back on.' So that year came up, right? And I texted all of them because I'm very close with them and I said, 'Look, just FYI, I'm about to start. I want to put the word out there.' They said, 'Okay, well we're gonna go and talk to management about it.' And they did, and they got fired."
Katy then said it would be "100 percent" enough if Taylor texted her an apology.
Did Katy Perry write a song about Taylor Swift?
'Swish Swish' was released in 2017 and famously was rumored to be about their feud.
"A tiger don't lose no sleep / Don't need opinions / From a shellfish or a sheep," verse one began with a nod to her song 'Roar' and the tweet from 2014 in which she called Taylor a "Regina George in sheep's clothing".
"And karma's not a liar / She keeps receipts," Katy sang on the second verse, a scathing reference to Kim Kardashian's attempted 2016 takedown of Taylor over Kanye West's song 'Famous' and the lyrics to which Taylor objected.
How did Taylor Swift and Katy Perry's feud end?
In 2018 Taylor kicked off the reputation tour – and revealed that Katy had, literally, extended an olive branch of friendship. "I just got back to my dressing room and found this actual olive branch. This...means so much to me," Taylor said in a video posted to her Instagram Stories.
The handwritten note attached began: "Hey old friend," and was in an envelope sealed with a sticker featuring the American Idol judge's dog.
In 2020 Katy revealed that Taylor had hand embroidered a blanket for her newborn baby daughter, Daisy.
"Miss [Daisy Dove] adores her hand embroidered blankie from miss @taylorswift. Hope it’s one she drags around for years till it becomes an unrecognizable shred that she keeps in her pocket as a teenager," the doting mom captioned an Instagram post.
Is Katy Perry in Taylor Swift's 'You Need to Calm Down'?
In June 2019 Taylor debuted the music video for her single 'You Need To Calm Down,' which was to be part of her then-upcoming seventh album, Lover.
As well as appearances from famous friends including Ryan Reynolds, Todrick Hall, Antoni Porowski and Bobby Berk, fans were shocked to see Katy, dressed as a hamburger, in the video. The moment sees Taylor – dressed as French fries – hugging the singer, with their feud fully behind them.
The 'Shake It Off' singer then revealed that the two had been "on very good terms" for longer than people realized.
"We were just kind of reconnecting privately and just wanted to make sure that everything was really good with us and that it was like a very real thing before we let anyone know that we're not only good but we're friends again. So it was really wonderful to get to, sort of, unveil it to the world in a cheeky sort of funny way," she told Heart Breakfast, a British radio station.
"Everything was on good terms and we ran into each other at a party a while ago and it was literally like in the video, seeing each other but without the food costume," she added. "It was like just fully sincere and full, like we've realized like we've grown up, we've grown enough to realize the fact that us feeling pitted against each other for so long really did add to whatever tension we were feeling in our friendship, and [reconnecting] is just a really positive thing for both of us in our lives."
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