One day, your kid comes home singin’/ A song that only us two is gonna know is about you”
Taylor Swift with Kim Kardashian, photo by Kevin Mazur/MTV1415/WireImage)
April 19, 2024 | 9:11am ET
The surprise second half of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department appears to include a diss track aimed at Kim Kardashian.
The song’s title itself is a dead giveaway: “thanK you aIMee,” with the letters KIM notably capitalized. There is also a not so subtle reference to a “bronze spray-tanned statue” in the opening verse.
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On Apple Music, lyrics about the song’s antagonist, Aimee, are also stylized in such a way to spell out the name Kim. “Screamed ‘fucK you, aIMee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin,” Swift sings in the chorus.
Later in the song, Swift all but confirms that “thanK you aIMee” it about Kardashian, singing, “And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues,” before closing with the particularly bitting line: “And one day, your kid comes home singin’/ A song that only us two is gonna know is about you.” (Kardashian’s daughter, North West, has previously posted videos on TikTok in which she dances along to Swift’s music.)
Swift’s feud with Kardashian dates back to 2015, when Kardashian’s ex-husband, Kanye West, referenced Swift on his track “Famous.” “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that bitch famous,” West rapped on the track. Swift responded to song by publicly lashing out against West during an acceptance speech at the 2016 Grammys, saying, “I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.”
Kardashian subsequently accused Swift of lying, claiming that the singer had signed off on the song prior to its release. As “proof,” she leaked footage of a phone conversation between West and Swift discussing the lyrics, with a “snake emoji” in the accompanying caption. Swift countered by claiming that she was unaware of all of song’s lyrics — specifically West’s use of the word “bitch” — but was nonetheless heavily vilified online.
Swift referenced the drama on her 2017 album, reputation, which also saw her reclaim the snake imagery in the video for “Look What You Made Me Do.” Years later, the full phone call between West and Swift leaked online, giving credence to Swift’s claims that she was unaware of all of the song’s lyrics.
In an interview with TIME last year, Swift said the leaked phone call felt like a “career death.” “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 recalled. “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 wrote, in a 2020 social media post, that the situation “forced me to defend him.”)
