Kanye West and Taylor Swift may be at odds again—or they may be best buddies.
It really depends who you believe.
According to Swift’s publicist, the pop superstar was bothered by a lyric from West’s new song, “Famous,” which he debuted along with the rest of his album at a fashion show at Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
The lyrics of the song include the line, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex…I made that bitch famous.”
Though reports said that West warned Swift about the line, her publicist says that’s not the case.
“Kanye did not call for approval,” her rep told the press, “but to ask Taylor to release his single 'Famous' on her Twitter account. She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that bitch famous.'”
West, however, took to Twitter on Friday to say he spoke to the singer for an hour on the phone and she was fine with the lyric.
“I did not diss Taylor Swift and I’ve never dissed her…” he tweeted at the start of his Twitter rant. It was a particularly interesting first point to make, since he memorably interrupted Swift’s VMAs acceptance speech in 2009 to declare Beyoncé deserved the award, not her.
West then went on with a series of tweets about the backlash.
“First thing is I’m an artist and as an artist I will express how I feel with no censorship,” he wrote. “2nd thing I asked my wife for her blessings and she was cool with it.”
“3rd thing I called Taylor and had a hour long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings,” he stated. “4th Bitch is an endearing term in hip hop like the word N---a.”
He went on to say the inspiration for the line came from Swift.
“5th thing I’m not even gone take credit for the idea… it’s actually something Taylor came up with …”
“She was having dinner with one of our friends who’s name I will keep out of this and she told him ‘I can’t be mad at Kanye because he made me famous! #FACTS’”
He added, “6th Stop trying to demonize real artist Stop trying to compromise art.”
West concluded by stating music is “watered down right now” and he was aiming to restore the “DMX feeling” in music. He also praised his own show, “It felt like a seen [sic] from The Warriors ALL GODS ALL GODS ALL GODS in the buildin [sic].”