One of celebrity’s longest-running but assumed dormant feuds has once again reared its head. Kim Kardashian West has accused Taylor Swift of lying after the pop star claimed that newly leaked footage of her infamous 2016 phone call with Kanye West exonerated her longstanding claim that he did not tell her that he planned to rap “I made that bitch famous” about her on his 2016 single, Famous. That line does not appear in the 20-minute tape of the call – previously only seen in snippets leaked by Kardashian West in 2016 – in which West and Swift debate whether he should sing “I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex” or “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex”. After he repeats the lyrics, she expresses her relief: “I thought it was going to be like, ‘That stupid, dumb bitch’,” she tells West. “But it’s not.” In an Instagram story, Swift wrote: “Instead of answering those who are asking how I feel about the video footage that was leaked, proving that I was telling the truth the whole time about *that call* (you know, the one that was illegally recorded, that somebody edited and manipulated in order to frame me and put me, my family and fans through hell for 4 years)… SWIPE UP to see what really matters”. She then linked to WHO and Feeding America, and called on fans to join her in donating to them during the coronavirus pandemic. Kardashian West responded on her Instagram story accusing Swift of lying about West not calling to ask for permission. “The lie was never about the word ‘bitch’,” she claimed. “It was always whether there was a call or not and the tone of the conversation. I never edited the footage (another lie) – I only posted a few clips on Snapchat to make my point and the full video that recently leaked doesn’t change the narrative.” The semantic debate reveals Kardashian West and Swift’s differing interpretations of the intent of West’s call. Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, responded by reposting the statement she released after West first released the song in 2016: “Kanye did not call for approval, 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.’” Paine added: “PS who did you guys piss off to leak that video?” It is the latest instalment in a saga of Serial-length proportions: in 2009, West interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech for best female video at the MTV Video Music awards, saying that Beyoncé should have won for Single Ladies. The resulting outcry saw Barack Obama label West “a jackass”. By 2015, Swift and West appeared to have reconciled, and were pictured together at several awards ceremonies. In February 2016, West debuted the single Famous at a fashion show for his Yeezy label in advance of releasing his album, The Life of Pablo. It contained the lyric: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.” West claimed on Twitter that Swift had given the line her blessing. Later that week at the Grammy awards, Swift alluded to the situation when she collected the award for album of the year, for her 2015 record 1989: “I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who are going to try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.” In July 2016, West released a video for the song depicting him in bed alongside naked likenesses of many celebrities, including Swift. His wife, Kardashian West, then leaked snippets of footage recording a phone call between West and Swift in which she appeared to approve a lyric – albeit not ‘“I made that bitch famous” – and thanked him for giving her advance warning of the song’s existence. Swift responded in a since-deleted Instagram post: “Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was gong to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened … Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.” Kardashian West insinuated that Swift was lying, which instigated a social media campaign against the singer. Swift has since said this period lead to a near breakdown and her withdrawal from public life between 2017 and 2019. In 2017, she released her sixth album, Reputation, which featured a number of songs that appeared to reference her feud with West. In the music video for lead single Look What You Made Me Do, she dressed up as prior incarnations of herself, including the outfit she wore to the 2009 MTV Video Music awards.