Taylor Swift gets sweet revenge against Kanye West amid years-long feud
Taylor Swift ended foe Kanye West’s number one streak on the Billboard 200 chart amid their years-long feud.
On Sunday, Billboard reported that the pop star’s latest album The Tortured Poets Department took the top spot for the 14th time, causing the rapper’s latest project with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 2, to land at No. 2.
Despite being released four months ago, Swift’s 11th studio album garnered another 142,000 equivalent album units, while West’s fresh drop, released August 4, racked up 107,000 equivalent album units.
With Vultures 2 debuting in second place, it ended West’s 19-year long No. 1 streak. The Donda rapper had released 11 consecutive albums that reached the top spot. It now becomes the Yeezy founder’s 13th album to reach the top two.
Swift’s fans, the Swifties, took to social media to celebrate the news that her album outranked West’s and ended his domination.
“oh taylor swift the legend that you are,” tweeted one person.
“It’s nice when karma strikes and we’ll get to see it,” added another.
“Taylor Swift ending Kanye West’s career again,” said a third user.
Swift and West’s longtime feud infamously kicked off in 2009 when he took the microphone from her as she received the best female video VMA award over Beyoncé’s Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).
The Gold Digger rapper, now 47, said at the time, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish. But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!”
Things escalated in 2016 when the Chicago-born musician rapped that he “might still have sex” with Swift, and that he “made that b**ch famous” on his song Famous.
After the Bad Blood singer, 34, took issue with the lyrics, West’s then-wife, Kim Kardashian, stepped into the scandal, claiming West had followed “proper protocol” to get “approval” from Swift before releasing the song.
The Skims co-founder, 43, then publicly released clips from West’s phone call with Swift via Snapchat, with the Shake It Off singer seemingly calling the “sex” line a “compliment.”
In December 2023, Swift reignited the feud when she was profiled as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before,” she recalled. “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,” she continued, comparing it to a “career death.”
The billionaire pop star this year released the song thanK you aIMee, in which she sings about a “bronze, spray-tanned” bully her mum “wish[es] were dead.”
Fans also noticed that the capital letters in the title of the song spell out “KIM.”
While Kardashian has not publicly responded to Swift’s shady song, she reportedly wants the Grammy winner to “move on” and put their beef to rest.
However, Swift and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, were name-dropped on West’s new album.
“I twist my Taylor spliffs tight at the end like Travis Kelce,” Lil Wayne rapped on Ye’s song Lifestyle (Demo).
The Kansas City Chiefs star’s dad, Ed Kelce, reacted to the lyric, calling it “mental illness on full display” as a jab at West, who has spoken about living with bipolar disorder.
