The great Taylor Swift and Katy Perry feud that almost ended last summer is still not over, folks. Last night's American Idol confirmed so much when Perry, a judge on the show, made a shady little remark about Swift. During a montage of auditions, one contestant was asked who he looked up to as a music artist.
"I'm sorry for this Katy: Taylor Swift," he answered.
"Oh, you don't have to be sorry," Perry replied.
"I love Taylor Swift," he added.
"I love her, as a songwriter, as well," Perry said, before turning away indifferently. The look she gave speaks volumes:
Swift and Perry have been public frenemies since 2014. Swift explained to Rolling Stone then why tour dancer drama killed their friendship. "For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not," Swift said of the frenemy widely speculated to be Perry. "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?' [Then] 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 nonconfrontational—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."
Perry told her side of the story to James Corden in May 2017 while on carpool karaoke: Swift started their feud. "Honestly, it's really like she started it, and it's time for her to finish it," she said. "I tried to talk to her about it and she wouldn't speak to me... I do the right thing any time that it feels like a fumble. It was a full shutdown and then she writes a song about me, and I'm like, 'Okay, cool, cool, cool, that's how you want to deal with it? Karma!'"
Perry also said that she'd really like it to end. "I'm ready for that BS to be done. Now, there is the law of cause and effect. You do something, there's going to be a reaction, and trust me daddy, there's going to be a reaction. No, I mean, it's all about karma, right? I think personally that women together, not divided, and like, none of this petty bullshit, women together will heal the world."
A month later, in June 2017, she apologized to Swift. "I am ready to let it go," Perry said on The Thrive Global Podcast. "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?"
Swift never said anything back, though she did release "Look What You Made Me Do," which appears to have one Perry-inspired lyric with its use of Perry's favorite word, karma: "The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama/But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma."
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she's not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
