Earlier today, Taylor Swift released a rainbow music video to her track You Need To Calm Down which was nothing short of a positive bubblegum daydream. Besides the endless list of cameos by LGBTQIA+ icons including the Queer Eye gang, Laverne Cox, Hayley Kiyoko, Ellen DeGeneres and Olympian Adam Rippon, there was one surprising appearance by Swift’s former nemesis: Katy Perry.
If you know anything about their tumultuous relationship, it signalled a surprising end to their feud which dates back to 2012 and involved back-up dancers, allegations of sabotage and Left Sharks. At the end of the music video, Swift (dressed as a massive box of French fries) spots Perry (dressed in her classic Moschino burger outfit) across the room and the pair come together in a warm embrace.
Perry also shared a picture gallery of the music video behind the scenes, which she captioned, "This meal is BEEF-free" and even shared the link to the video in her Instagram bio.
Hints that the pair had resolved their feud were dropped last week when Perry shared a telling Instagram post. Her post included a picture of homemade cookies on a plate that read "PEACE AT LAST" on her Instagram account, tagging Swift in the caption.
Swift responded with a string of emoji hearts.
After years of subtweeting and petty trolling, it’s a relief to see that the pair have finally called time on their tiff. From mad love to bad blood to cookies, here's a full timeline of their relationship.
2012
In 2012, Taylor Swift was on a roll when she took a world tour in support of her album, Red. However, three of her back-up dancers - Lockhart Brownlie, Scott Myrick and Leah Adler - also happened to be very close to Katy Perry and had toured with the star for her California Dreams shows.
When Perry began preparing for her own 2013 world tour for her album Prism, Perry reached out to see if all three of them would be open to touring with her again. But the dates clashed with Swift’s.
In the end, all three dancers decided to leave Swift’s tour before it ended and join Perry’s instead - apparently igniting the bad blood between the singers.
2013
March: Taylor Swift's pointed cake
Before the drama became public knowledge, Swift appeared to take aim at both Perry and backup dancer Scott Myrick.
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In March, Taylor celebrated the start of her Red tour with a red Barbie doll cake. Myrick was quick to draw comparisons with a similar cake Perry had given him previously.
Myrick asked, “Who wore the cake better? @TaylorSwift13 Barbie or @Scott_Myrick Barbie!”
It didn’t take long before Perry retweeted the comparison picture, adding the comment, “Mother's always watching…”
July: More backup dancer drama
Swift reportedly unfollowed the three backup dancers at the centre of the feud on Twitter.
December: Swift and Perry's backup dancer explains what happened
The drama eventually exploded when another of the mentioned back-up dancers, Brownlie, opened up about the complex situation to The Examiner.
He revealed that the three dancers were actually closer to Perry, which factored into their decision to leave the tour.
He explained, “I was with Taylor for the first six months. It was a great experience and she’s a great person to work with, but then Katy contacted us.”
“Obviously we were with Katy for 2 1/2 years, she’s like family to us, so we were, like, ‘absolutely’,” Brownlie continued. “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.”
While he said that all three of them “had so much fun with [Swift]”, he revealed that working with her was “completely different”. He explained that she was “very untouchable” and “a lot more protected than Katy”.
Brownlie said, "Katy's 28 now and can do her own thing. Her team are so lovely, so we have such a good connection. And this time around she is a lot more in control."
During this time, Perry began dating Swift’s ex, John Mayer (the reported inspiration for her Swift’s son Dear John). Swift’s comments to Rolling Stone in 2014 clarified that a feud with an unnamed singer “wasn’t even about a guy”.
2014
September: Taylor Swift’s Rolling Stone cover interview
Ahead of the release of her song "Bad Blood," Swift covers Rolling Stone and opened up about the inspiration behind the song. Swift was famous for dropping hints that her songs were written about past romantic flames, but she clarified that "Bad Blood" was actually about “another female artist who tried to sabotage an entire arena tour”.
Swift said of the anonymous artist, "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 continued, “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."
Despite the fact that Swift and Perry previously sent one another gushy tweets and were pictured looking friendly at events, Swift added, "For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards 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?'"
September: Katy Perry responds
Shortly after Swift’s interview comments go viral, Perry posted what some fans perceived as a subtweet.
Referencing the cult film Mean Girls, Perry tweeted, “Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing...”
October: Taylor Swift’s album 1989 drops
The first version of "Bad Blood" was finally released, as well as Swift's album 1989. The original version, which doesn’t feature rapper Kendrick Lamar, features lyrics allegedly aimed at Perry, including “I was thinking that you could be trusted” and “Now we got problems and I don’t think we can solve them”.
Fans of Swift were quick to point out that in the accompanying CD lyric booklet, the "Bad Blood" lyrics are strategically positioned right next to a Polaroid of a Grammy Award. Given that Perry had yet to win a Grammy at that point and Swift had won several, some interpreted it as a dig at Perry.
2015
May: The Bad Blood music video comes out
Swift’s music video for "Bad Blood" premiered and promptly sent the Internet into a meltdown.
Swift, who plays an assassin called Catastrophe in the video (an important note for later on), is joined by a star-studded female group of Avengers, including Jessica Alba, Lily Aldridge, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Lena Dunham, Ellie Goulding, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss and Selena Gomez (who plays her onscreen nemesis).
May: Katy Perry reportedly responds to Bad Blood
In May, a source close to Perry told Hollywood Life that the singer had seen Swift’s video. They said, “She saw it, she thought the video was a little desperate and that she tried too hard but she isn’t going to worry about Taylor too much because she has her own career to worry about.”
They continued, “She felt slighted with the song but the video didn’t really bother her.”
July: Taylor Swift feuds with Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry pitches in
Following the MTV VMA nominations that year, Minaj criticised MTV in a series of tweets after her video "Anaconda" was not nominated for Best Video in 2015. After claiming that if she was "a different 'kind' of artist” she would be nominated, she continued, “If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.”
Although Minaj didn’t appear to be directly targeting Swift, "Bad Blood" was nominated that year and she took it personally. In a since-deleted tweet, Swift responded directly and wrote, “@NICKIMINAJ I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot.”
Hilariously enough, Minaj wasn’t even talking about Swift. The rapper responded, “Huh? U must not be reading my tweets. Didn't say a word about u. I love u just as much. But u should speak on this. @taylorswift13”
As the drama dominated the news cycle, Perry issued yet another subtweet that seemed to take aim at Swift.
She wrote, “Finding it ironic to parade the pit women against other women argument about as one unmeasurably [sic] capitalizes on the take down of a woman…”
July: Taylor Swift trolls Katy Perry’s Left Shark
While on tour, one of Swift’s "Bad Blood" performances made an explicit reference to Perry’s half-time show at the Super Bowl that same year. More specifically, it hit on one of Perry’s most viral moments featuring the now infamous Left Shark - a backup dancer dressed as a shark who struggled with the choreography.
In a video captured by a fan, as Swift sings one of her backup dancers slams himself against a window dressed in a budget shark costume.
Swift can be seen having to pull the microphone away from her face as she bursts into laughter and continues grinning as she performs the rest of the track.
October: Taylor Swift doubles down on the meaning behind Bad Blood
In an interview with GQ, Swift was asked yet again about "Bad Blood". She clarified that the song doesn’t “point to any one person or any one situation” and reaffirmed that it wasn’t about any of her prior romances.
She continued, “It was important to show that losing friendships can be just as damaging to a person as losing a romantic relationship.”
2016
February: Katy Perry invites Taylor Swift to her pre-Grammys party
After years of drama, Perry and Swift appeared to reach an entente. In an interview with The New York Times, Perry revealed that she had actually invited “a mixture of new and familiar artists” to her pre-Grammys party which she hoped would become the “Met Ball of music”.
She revealed that Taylor Swift had been issued an invite (as well as Adele) and said, “It’s just up to their schedules.”
While it isn’t known if Swift actually attended, it seems unlikely she would have - especially since Perry’s party was thrown with Spotify.
In 2014, Swift famously pulled her entire catalogue from the music streaming service and declared, “It is my opinion that music should not be free.”
June: Katy Perry releases her Mad Love fragrance
Perry releases a fragrance called Mad Love, which appears to be a reference to "Bad Blood". In the chorus, Swift sings, "Now we've got bad blood, you know it used to be mad love.”
According to The Fragrance Shop, the perfume “incorporates the spirit of love at the heart of the fragrance” and is “fruity and irresistible”.
July: Katy Perry subtweets (again) after Calvin Harris’ tweetstorm
After music producer Calvin Harris and Swift's 15-month relationship ended, Harris took to Twitter after reports emerged that she had written his track with Rihanna called "This is What You Came For" under a pseudonym.
Harris confirmed that Swift - or rather, Nils Sjoberg - had written the lyrics and even sang on the track. He later accused her team of leaking the story and said “initially she wanted it kept secret” that she had written the track.
He then dragged Perry into the thick of it and slammed Swift directly, tweeting, “I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it.”
Yet again, Perry raised her subtweeting head and appeared to respond with a GIF of Hillary Clinton making an exasperated yet all-knowing face.
She then retweeted one of her old tweets seemingly in response, which read simply, “Time, the ultimate truth teller.”
September: Katy Perry is asked if she’ll collab with Swift
After a fan asks Perry if she would be open to collaborating on a song with Swift, Perry responds, “if she says sorry, sure!”
2017
May: Katy Perry begins promoting Witness
Ahead of the release of her album Witness, Perry talked to Entertainment Weekly. In a blanket statement that she claimed was “not to any one person”, she said, “One thing to note is: You can’t mistake kindness for weakness and don’t come for me. Anyone. Anyone. Anyone. Anyone.”
She continued, “Let me say this: Everything has a reaction or a consequence so don’t forget about that, okay, honey.”
She extolled the power of women working together in the interview, saying “Honestly, when women come together and they decide to unite, this world is going to be a better place. Period, end of story.”
May: Katy Perry explains the start of their feud
Perry appeared on James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke and during the duets, she touched on her history with Swift. After Corden questioned her, she stated, “Honestly, it’s like she started it and it’s time for her to finish it.”
Perry elaborated on what exactly happened between them concerning the three backing dancers caught in the middle of the drama.
Calling the situation “so crazy”, she said, “So, there’s three backing dancers that went on tour with her tour, right? And they asked me before they went on tour if they could go and I was like ‘Yeah, of course. But I will be on record cycle probably in about a year. So be sure to put a thirty day contingency in your contract so you can get out if you wanna join me when I’m going back on.”
“So that year came up, right?” she continued. “And I texted all of them because I’m very close with them and I said, ‘Look just FYI, I’m about to start and I want to put the word out there. And they said okay well we’re going to go and talk to management about it. And they did and then they got fired. And I tried to talk to her about it and she wouldn’t speak to me.”
She added that any attempt to contact Swift was a “full shutdown” and said, “Then, she writes a song about me. So I was like, ‘Cool, cool, cool, so that’s how you wanna deal with it? Karma...Now there is the law of cause and effect. You do something and there’s going to be a reaction and trust me daddy, there’s going to be a reaction.”
Despite that, she revealed that she was “ready for that BS to be done”.
June 9: Katy Perry talks to NME
In an interview with NME, Perry touched yet again on the drama. She said, “No one has asked me about my side of the story, and there are three sides of every story: one, two, and the truth.”
She continued, “I mean, I’m not Buddha — things irritate me. I wish that I could turn the other cheek every single time, but I’m also not a pushover, you know? Especially when someone tries to assassinate my character with little girls [Swift’s fans]. That’s so messed up!”
June 10: Katy Perry releases her album and Taylor Swift appears to react
Perry releases her album Witness at the stroke of midnight on June 10, following years of work and promotion.
In a move that some have speculated was deliberate, Swift put her entire music back catalogue on Spotify at the exact same time Perry’s album dropped. She claimed at the time it was a “thank you” to her fans, following the news that she had sold 10 million albums worldwide.
British singer Lily Allen seemed to believe it was a calculated move on Swift’s part and said it was, “In other words, mean.”
June 9-12: Witness livestream
To promote Witness, Perry allowed her fans to witness her online in a mammoth 96 hour livestream. Over the course of it, she spoke to Ariana Huffington on an episode of her Thrive podcast and said of her fight with Swift, “I am ready to let it go.”
She continued, “I forgive her and I’m sorry for anything I ever did, and I hope the same from her. I think it’s actually like, I think it’s time. There are bigger fish to fry, and there are real problems in the world. You know what I’m saying? And I love her, and I want the best for her. And I think she’s a fantastic songwriter, and I think that, you know, if we, both her and I, can be representatives of strong women that come together despite their differences, I think the whole world is going to go like, ‘Yeah, well we can do this.’”
“I don’t agree with everything she does and she doesn’t agree with everything I do, but I just really truly want to come together in a place of love and forgiveness and understanding and compassion,” she continued. “There’s a lot of other things out there in the world that people need to be focused on, and I truly, like, God bless her on her journey. God bless her.”
The feud only seemed to escalate when the music video for her perceived diss track Swish Swish dropped in August.
August 21: Katy Perry issues a countdown to Swish Swish
Perry shared a teaser clip ahead of the premiere of her star-studded music video for "Swish Swish" but it was her Twitter caption that instantly drew fans attention. The message read “COUNTDOWN TO CATASTROPHE” and some fans pointed out that Catastrophe was the name of Swift’s character in "Bad Blood," which seems to suggest "Swish Swish" was a direct response to the track.
August 24: The Swish Swish music video comes out
Perry’s Space Jam-inspired music video is released and is riddled with symbolism that appears to reference her and Swift’s long history. As with "Bad Blood" the video centres around two different basketball teams: Perry’s team, the Tigers, and another team called the Sheep, helmed by Game of Thrones star Hafthor Julius Bjornsson, who played The Mountain.
If you can cast your mind back to 2014, one of Perry’s reported subtweets appeared to call Swift a “Regina George in sheep’s clothing”.
Perry called on one of Swift’s former enemies to collaborate with her on the track, as Nicki Minaj rapped and cheered Perry’s team on in the video. One of her lyrics directly aligned her with Perry, as she said, “I only rock with Queens, so I'm makin' hits with Katy.”
The lyrics were no less pointed either, as Perry sang, “You're calculated/I got your number/'Cause you're a joker/And I'm a courtside killer queen/And you will kiss the ring.”
Another verse included the lyrics, “Your game is tired/You should retire/You're 'bout cute as/An old coupon expired”.
August 24: Taylor Swift releases the lyric video to Look What You Made Me Do
Swift released the lyric video to her song "Look What You Made Me Do" on the same day as Perry, which seemed to address Perry’s accusation she was a Regina George. One fan pointed out that the backing beat sounds exactly like the beat in one Mean Girls scene, in which Regina dresses up as a Playboy bunny for Halloween.
The lyrics seemed to support that theory, as Swift appeared to reference the film’s iconic Burn Book. They go, “I got a list of names and yours is in red underlined.”
November: Taylor Swift announces UK tour dates that clash with Perry’s
Perry announced that she would be taking her Witness tour across the UK for eight days, between June 14-25 in 2018. In late November 2017, Swift also announced a three date UK tour that happened to coincide with Perry’s bracket between June 8 and 27. (The shows were never held in the same city at the same time.)
2018
March: Katy Perry on American Idol
Perry picked up a slightly different gig on reality television, as she became a judge on American Idol for its sixteenth and seventeenth seasons. During an audition round, one hopeful admitted to Perry that he looked up to Swift as an artist and said, “I’m sorry for this Katy...I love Taylor Swift.”
Perry responded diplomatically and said, “Oh, you don’t have to be sorry. I love her as a songwriter as well.”
May: Perry’s olive branch
Ahead of the start of Swift’s Reputation tour, Swift posted an Instagram story that appeared to signal an end to their feud. The story revealed a handwritten letter from Perry in an envelope with a dog sticker on it, which she captioned “Thank you Katy”.
The contents of the letter were difficult to make out, but it appears to begin, “Hey old friend, I’ve been doing some reflecting on past miscommunications and the hurt feelings between us.”
While the rest of the letter is either illegible or blocked by the envelope, the words “deeply sorry” can be seen. Swift called the letter an “actual olive branch” in a video and revealed it was sent to her dressing room, adding, “This means so much to me.”
Shortly afterward, a source told The Sun that Perry was reportedly upset that Swift had shared the letter on social media.
They claimed, “Katy expected that Taylor would post something about it, but she didn’t expect the actual letter to go on social. The thing is, you can only see part of what Katy wrote and it looks like she’s taking sole responsibility for the entire feud.”
“Without context, it looks like [Perry’s] taking the blame for everything and obviously there’s a lot more to it than that,” they continued.
2019
June: Swift’s olive branch
This week, Perry shared an image of what appeared to be homemade chocolate chip cookies on Instagram. Served on an oval plate, the words “peace at last” and a couple of peace symbols are written in icing on the rim of the plate.
If there was any doubt as to who the cookies were from, Perry dispelled any speculation when she tagged Taylor Swift in the caption. She added a heart emoji and wrote, “feels good”.
The post was tellingly geotagged Let’s Be Friends.
Taylor Swift - In pictures
