While performing during the opening night of her ‘Reputation’ tour, Taylor Swift gave an inspiring speech about standing up to bullies…and she made a big reference to her feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West to do it. Watch here.
Taylor Swift had an important message for her fans about bullying on night one of the Reputation tour, and she made her point by discussing a tough situation she went through herself — her drama with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Since Taylor made her music comeback in Aug. 2017, she’s used snakes as an important symbol in videos, merchandise and more, and the snakes are a big part of her set on tour, as well. She finally confirmed the reason behind that while onstage in Glendale, Arizona on May 8. “A couple of years ago, someone called me a snake on social media and it caught on,” she explained. “And then a lot of people were calling me a liar on social media and I went through some really low times for a while because of it. I went through some times when I didn’t know if I was going to get to do this anymore.”
Although the singer didn’t mention the situation directly, it’s pretty clear what she’s referring to. Back in 2016, Kim released video recordings of a phone call Taylor had with Kanye about his song “Famous,” which includes lyrics about Taylor. On that same day, the reality star also tweeted, “Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!? They have holidays for everybody. I mean everything these days!” She completed her tweet with a series of snake emojis, which her fans then started using to flood the comments of Taylor’s social media pages. Taylor was branded as a liar after the videos of the phone callseemed to show her giving ‘Ye the “okay” to sing about her on “Famous.” However, as she eventually pointed out herself, there was never a moment when he told her he’d be referring to her as “that b****” on the track.
After admitting that the public drama really took a toll on her, Taylor continued her Reputation tour speech with an inspiring message to her fans, explaining what she learned from going through it. “I wanted to send a message to you guys that if someone uses name-calling to bully you on social media, and even if a lot of people jump on-board with it, that doesn’t have to defeat you,” she said. “It can strengthen you instead. And I think something that came out of it that was good is that I learned a really important lesson that I’ve been telling you from the stage for ten years, but I haven’t been able to learn myself — which has to do with how much you value your reputation. And I think that the lesson is that you shouldn’t care so much if you feel misunderstood by a lot of people who don’t know you, as long as you feel understood by the people who do know you, the people who do show up for you, and the people who see you as a human being. So thank you. Thank you for taking the time to get to know me, for sticking up for me, for seeing me as a human being.”
Following the speech, she went on to sing her song “Long Live” from the album Speak Now, which she wrote many years ago as a way to thank her fans for always standing by her. The song clearly continues to have a lot of meaning for her to this day — the fans continue to show up and sell out arenas, regardless of what people have said about her in the media. So sweet!
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