As Swift—who’d also addressed the song during her Album of the Year acceptance speech at the 2016 Grammys—has explained, the issue was bigger than the lyric and took into account her history with West.
In 2019, she told Rolling Stone that reconnecting with him after the 2009 VMAs incident “was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19″ and that she’d just wanted West’s respect.
But then the 2015 VMAs happened. And while West called Swift “gracious” for presenting him with the award, he also said, “You know how many times they announced Taylor was gonna give me the award because it got them more ratings?” In that moment, Swift told the magazine, she felt a “chill” in her body.
“I realized he is so two-faced,” she continued. “That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk s–t. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, ‘You know what? I really don’t want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I’m just going to move past this.’”
And she thought they had—until she heard “Famous.”
“So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song,” she added to the outlet. “And I was like, ‘OK, good. We’re back on good terms.’ And then when I heard the song, I was like, ‘I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.'”