As we all learned this week, Taylor Swift has a new album called “Reputation” which is set to be released on Nov. 10 this year. We also just got blessed with Swift’s first single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” Taylor Swift is the girl that you love to hate. You love her music, but can’t fully say you love her. In celebration of all of our favorite frenemy (because yes we are very excited for her new music despite her being a problematic fave sometimes), here is the top five pettiest things Taylor Swift has ever done.
5. The Snake
Taylor has been posting videos of a snake over the past week that we now know were a tool to promote her album announcement. In case you lived under a rock last year, Taylor was given the nickname “snake” last year after she lied about not giving permission to Kanye West to reference her in his song “Famous.” She played the victim and called out Kanye for making her a part of a narrative she never asked to be a character in. The problem with that was that Kim Kardashian shared a video of West on the phone with Taylor where she approves of being referenced in a song. You messed up that one, Taylor. The choice of “reclaiming” the snake can only be read as petty.
4. Trademarking “1989” and “this sick beat”
Number four of Taylor’s pettiest moments is something much more under the radar than the Kimye incident. After Taylor dropped her last album, 1989, she decided to trademark the words “this sick beat,” which are lyrics from her song “Shake It Off.” She later trademarked the year “1989”. What about all the other people who were born in 1989, guess they’re out of luck? This pretty much deterred anyone from selling their own fan made merch on Etsy.
3. Harry Styles Breakup
Moving more to the really petty side, how Taylor used Harry Styles as a pawn in order to advance her own career. Taylor and Harry dated back in 2012, much to One Direction fans’ dismay. When Haylor inevitably didn’t work out, Taylor didn’t take it too gracefully. First off, after they broke up, she tweeted “til you put me down,” lyrics from her song “I Knew You Were Trouble.” After she tweeted that, people went crazy talking about how that song was about Harry when in fact it was written way before her and Harry got together. If that wasn’t bad enough, during the 2013 Grammy Awards she practically called Harry out by name while she was performing “We Are Never Getting Back Together.” She used a mocking British accent during the bridge where she says “so he calls me and he’s like ‘I still love you’.” She then switched back to her regular voice for the response “and I’m like I’m sorry I’m busy opening up for the Grammys and we are never getting back together.” Sigh, “We Are Never Getting Back Together” was also written before she got together with Harry.
2. Better Than Revenge
One of the cringiest times in Taylor’s celebrity life was the Camilla Belle era. Back in 2008, Joe Jonas broke up with Taylor after a brief time dating only to quickly move on to Camilla Belle. Taylor was not happy about that and everything escalated to her writing “Better Than Revenge,” which doesn’t attack Joe, the boy who wronged her. No, it attacks Camilla. The song includes lines like:
She’s not a saint
And she’s not what you think
She’s an actress, whoa
She’s better known
For the things that she does
On the mattress, whoa.
Taylor later chalked up the song to being young and dumb, but looking back that was PETTY.
1. Dropping her music on Katy Perry’s album release day
We have finally made it to the hands down pettiest thing Taylor has ever done. Another long standing feud for Taylor is with fellow pop star, Katy Perry. The two had a falling out after some of Taylor’s dancers left to tour with Katy, not to mention Katy had a thing with John Mayer, one of Taylor’s exes. Taylor ended up writing the song “Bad Blood” off of 1989 about a friend stabbing her in the back, which is assumed to be about Katy Perry. All seemed to be forgotten and Taylor disappeared into her Kimye induced hiatus, until she released her music on Spotify the same day as Katy released her newest album. If we’ve learned anything it’s that Taylor can’t just let sleeping dogs lie.