Karma is the Swifties on the screen coming straight to Kim Kardashian’s comment section. In Taylor Swift’s Dec. 6 interview for TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year , she spoke out about *that* leaked 2016 phone call between herself and Kanye West that launched her Reputation era. Now, Swifties are flooding Kim K’s Instagram demanding that she apologize to Swift for her role in the infamous Snake Gate scandal.
Let me set the scene: It’s 2016. Swift and West appear to have made amends at the 2015 VMAs, Kim and Kanye’s marriage makes headlines every day, and all is well in the music world. Then, West releases a now-infamous song called “Famous.” The first verse includes the lyrics, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b*tch famous,” and the music video features a naked wax figure of Swift in bed with West.
Obviously, Swift wasn’t a fan. In her 2016 Grammy acceptance speech for Album of the Year, she subtly called out West for trying to “undercut [her] success” and “take credit for [her] accomplishments [and her] fame.” At the time, her rep told Billboard that Swift was never made aware of the lyric “I made that b*tch famous,” a claim Kardashian refuted in an interview with GQ four months later. In July 2016, Kardashian uploaded a video of a phone call between West and Swift that seemingly showed Swift approving the lyrics to “Famous.” Though the offending line isn’t mentioned in the video, it was enough for the public to turn its opinion on Swift.
It’s been seven years since Snake Gate (which earned its name from a shady 2016 tweet by Kardashian), and Swift’s still trying to set the record straight about what really happened.
“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 told TIME. “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.”
After Kardashian leaked the phone call in 2016, critics flooded Swift’s Instagram comments with snake emojis. But now, the tables have turned. Instead of snake emojis, Swifties are now taking to Kardashian’s comment section with pleas for her to issue Swift a public apology. Her Campus reached out to Kardashian’s team for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
“APOLOGIZE TO TAY,” one fan wrote. Another commented, “What you did to Tay affected her mental state. Your words & actions have consequences [for] others. Make this right & you will get more respect.”
There hasn’t been any word from Swift or Kardashian on the issue since the TIME interview was published on Dec. 6, and if Kardashian is true to her word, she won’t comment on Snake Gate publicly ever again. Hopefully, the pair can dissolve their “bad blood” behind the scenes.