The drama between Kanye West [1] and Taylor Swift [2] continues. Four years after the #PhoneGate [3] between Taylor, Kanye, and Kim Kardashian [4], it appears a new video has surfaced that may back-up everything Taylor's been claiming since 2016. A YouTube account [5] and Twitter thread [6], leaked a supposedly unedited version of the call between the artists — although it's unclear where the video originated. Kanye runs certain lyrics by Taylor over the phone, but notably does not ask for her approval about a very specific line: "I made that b*tch famous."
But first, a refresher: In 2016, Kanye released "Famous," a song where he raps, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that b*tch famous." Taylor slammed the track upon its release and argued she was approached to share the song on Twitter but never saw its final lyrics. Kim came to her husband's defence and shared a video of a phone conversation between Taylor and Kanye, where she presumably heard the line and gave it her blessing. In response, Taylor stood her ground and added, "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009."
On March 20, an alleged extended version of the 2016 video surfaced on Twitter. In the clips, Kanye does ask Taylor to share the track on Twitter and she responds hesitantly. "I guess it would just be, people would be like, "Why is this happening?" And I had something to do with it, probably," she said.
"The reason why it would happen is because it has a very controversial line at the beginning of the song about you," Kanye responded. Taylor asked, "Will it be mean?" He reassured her that he doesn't think it's mean, and tells her the lyric: "So it says, 'To all my Southside n— that know me best/ I feel like Taylor Swift [7] might owe me sex.'"
She acknowledged that the line is "not mean" and she would consider tweeting it. "I need to think about it because you hear something for the first time, you need to think about it because it is absolutely crazy. It doesn't feel mean, but like, oh my God, the build-up you gave it. I thought it was gonna be like that stupid dumb b*tch, like, but it's not."
Later in the call, Kanye runs another lyric idea by Taylor. "What if I said I made you famous?" She didn't sound comfortable with this line, but responded, "Did you say that? Oh God, well, what am I going to do about it at this point. It's just kind of, like, whatever at this point, but I mean, you gotta tell the story the way it happened to you and the way that you experienced it."
"You honestly didn't know who I was before that, she continued. "It doesn't matter if I sold 7 million of that album before you did that, which is what happened. You didn't know who I was before that and that's fine. Yeah, I can't wait to hear it."
It's worth noting that nowhere in the video did she approve the line that would eventually make the final track. Also, where did this video come from? Why did it release so many years later? In 2020, we're still left with more questions than answers.