There seems to be plenty of bad blood between the divas of the music industry so lets trace back to what led to the catastrophic meltdown of their seemingly perfect camaraderie. It first started with America’s sweetheart Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. Though neither party has mentioned the other by name, the snipes they have been taking at each other have certainly been hard evidence of a budding war. The two have been friends since 2008, when they clicked together at the VMAs and the following year’s Grammy’s. They kept tweeting each other with gushing praises and there was even talk of a possible collaboration and even wishing each other on birthdays. Taylor then started dating John Mayer and the brief relationship lasted till early 2010. The same year, Perry performed with her at a concert in LA and the duo was clicked together at award shows. The plot soon thickened when Perry started dating John Mayer with whom she has had an on-and-off relationship which was rumoured to be “on” at that time. In March 2012, three dancers who had been part of Perry’s California Dreams tour auditioned and signed up for Taylor’s Red Tour.
Two months into her tour, Taylor tweeted at Perry to never change, presumably because Katy tweeted, “I knew you were truffle when you walked in #dinnertime,” a snide comment at her song I knew you were trouble when you walked in.
Six months into Taylor’s tour, the three aforementioned dancers were asked to join Katy again for her upcoming Prismatic World Tour. They all agreed and were hired out from under Taylor and one of them even said, “It was a great experience and Taylor’s a great person to work with, but then Katy contacted us. Obviously we were with Katy for two and a half years, she’s like family to us, so we were, like, ‘Absolutely.’ We weren’t really dancing in Taylor’s tour anyway so I had got a little bored and I really wanted to do a promo tour.’’ So, they left.
Then in the infamous Rolling Stone interview Taylor talked about her new song Bad Blood and where the inspiration came from: “For years I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at award shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’ Then last year she did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational — you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”
Shortly after Taylor’s interview hit the web, Katy tweeted to be aware of a “Regina George” in sheep’s clothing, referring to the iconic villain of Mean Girls. Katy addressed the whole thing in an interview with Billboard Magazine, before her half-time performance at the Super Bowl. “If somebody is trying to defame my character,” her quote says, “you’re going to hear about it.” And the world did. Her backup dancers wore an outfit that was a clear rip-off of Taylor’s outfit.
After this year’s VMAs, Nicki called out issues of racial bias within the music industry when her Anaconda music video didn’t make the nominations for best video. “If I was a different ‘kind’ of artist, Anaconda would be nominated for best choreography and video of the year as well,” Minaj tweeted. “When the ‘other’ girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture, they get that nomination. If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for the video of the year,” she added later.
Taylor took Nicki’s comments personally as she was the only white artist to be nominated for video of the year which showcases an ensemble of the industry’s stars looking like supermodels in two rival groups. So she tweeted to the rapper, “I’ve done nothing but love and support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other.” Nicki quickly replied to clarify her comments, telling Taylor it wasn’t about her. Katy Perry weighed in on the conversation, making a pretty clear reference to Taylor’s tweet and her bad blood video when she said, “Finding it ironic to parade the pit against other women argument about as one unmeasurably capitalises on the take-down of a woman...”
Meanwhile, Perry offered praises to Rihanna, whose B**** Better Have My Money was also noticeably absent from the VMA nominations.
“The real travesty is where is the shine for #BBHMMVideo when VMA eligibility period was 7/7/14-7/1/15 & that gem dropped 7/1... @MTV— KATY PERRY (@katyperry)”
Taylor Swift is also reportedly not happy with Miley Cyrus who shared a photoshopped picture of Taylor and Justin Bieber captioning it “If you face swap Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, they look like a cute lesbian couple,” This could cause bad blood between the two pop-stars as Swift is reportedly not on good terms with the Baby singer after he split with her best friend, Selena Gomez.
If this feud gets any bigger it could drag down Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and all the other artists featured in the Bad Blood video.