Believe it or not, there used to be a time long ago where Taylor Swift was an agent of chaos. Whether it was a few digs at a few exes, or more large-scale and ongoing issues with her girlfriends, Miss Swift has had her fair share of diva moments. In no particular order, let’s take a look at a few of my all-time favorites.
- The Joe Jonas & Taylor Swift Dolls
Starting off strong, we have the moment Taylor Swift revealed that Joe Jonas broke up with her via a 27 second phone call. She clocked him. There’s honestly not much more to say here. At the very least, she’s sent his baby some cool presents.
- “…’til you put me down.”
Our second diva moment of discussion follows a tweet, by Taylor herself, after an infamous vacation with her at-the-time boyfriend, Harry Styles. On this fateful 2012 day, Taylor was seen leaving the island early and alone, in a blue-dress-on-a-boat kind of fashion. What else came out of this vacation you may ask? Oh, right… the photo from the alleged restaurant she’s still stuck at. Back when celebrities used Twitter as a medium for communication with fans, Taylor, in millennial fashion, just had to be a little mysterious and weird.
- 2013 Grammys
Don’t worry, we have another Tayrry moment (the ship name is a crime in itself). Immediately following the breakup, Taylor opened at the 2013 Grammys with a hit single off her album Red, called “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” During the bridge of the song, which is supposed to replicate a phone call with her friends dissing the ex in question, she put on a laughably bad British accent (imitating Styles). She took this moment to let everyone who hadn’t seen the Tweet know for sure that they were done, and for good.
- 2013 Billboard Music Awards
As we can see, this was an era of messiness. At the BMAs, she performed “22,” won an award, and overall had a pretty good night. Unfortunately, these moments were completely overshadowed by her hating on Justin Bieber. During the time, Selena Gomez, Taylor’s best friend, was in the middle of an off-again on-again relationship with Justin Bieber. A clip surfaced of Selena and Justin stopping to talk for a few minutes, with Taylor behind her making a face and sticking her tongue out as she walked away. Later on, she was asked a question about Justin during an interview, and said, “Can we have another question?” I love this moment. I love the idea of openly hating on your friend’s slimy ex-boyfriend who can’t seem to stay away. She clocked that.
- Katy Perry Feud
At the very end of 2013, some of Taylor’s backup dancers had revealed that they’d left the Red Tour to join Katy Perry on her Prismatic World Tour. Come 2014, Taylor had launched an attack on Katy. In a Rolling Stone interview, she was not evasive about the fact that the two were feuding. While it wasn’t verbally confirmed by one of them until 2017, everyone knew the drama as it was going down. Taylor then dropped the “Bad Blood” music video, a song allegedly about Katy, which was full of Hollywood icons like Zendaya, Cindy Crawford, and of course, featured Kendrick Lamar. While a diss track was made in response to this by Katy, it wasn’t anywhere near as popular. And, while I’m not saying this caused it, Katy Perry’s career has been pretty quiet since. Personally, I don’t believe that the feud was necessarily caused by this dancer situation, but I think it was the easiest reason to publicly attach to this ongoing feud. The two publicly made up in 2019, after the “You Need To Calm Down” music video came out, with Katy making a cameo performance and the two hugging it out.
- Nicki vs. Taylor
Unfortunately for Taylor, if you’re stupid enough to engage in a public feud with Nicki Minaj, you need to be humbled real quick. And that’s exactly what happened. After Nicki had not received GRAMMY nominations for her “Anaconda” music video, she made a tweet suggesting that there’s a race problem within the music industry. Since only white female musicians were receiving nominations, despite how influential of a moment “Anaconda” was, I believe Nicki had a right to question why that was. The tweet was addressing thin white women, and as a skinny white woman, Taylor should’ve kept her mouth shut unless she was voicing support. Unfortunately, and quite embarrassingly, she took it personally. She responded, via a tweet, saying how supportive she’s been in the past and how disappointing it was that Nicki was pitting women against each other. While the tweets have since been deleted, Nicki responded and basically put Taylor right back in her place. Taylor issued an apology and performed with Nicki at the VMAs that same year.
- Bleachella
Her hair was a bleached bob. It was so bad. We don’t talk about it. Moving on.
- Calvin Harris vs. Tom Hiddleston vs. Joe Alwyn
The last messy moment we’ll be discussing is the ultimate getaway car moment. After an abrupt breakup with Calvin Harris, a video immediately leaked of Taylor cha-cha-sliding on Tom Hiddleston at the 2016 Met Gala. With timelines blurring, there are lots of questions about cheating. Taylor and Tom soon got into a relationship, but that same night, she also met Joe Alwyn for the first time. This was a chaotic time period, as the drama between Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and Taylor had begun. She was entering an era of being unapologetically indifferent. She did not care. She put a little pin in Joe as a come-back-to-later, and after a very short-lived relationship with Tom Hiddleston, she cheated on him with Joe Alwyn, which she seemingly confirms in her song “Getaway Car” on the album Reputation. You win them how you lose them, I guess.
As a long time fan, I didn’t realize how much lore I was tuned into at the ripe age of 11. Why was I so mad at Katy Perry? Why did one facial expression make me anti-Justin Bieber?
While I left out many other iconic diva moments, these eight are my personal favorites. Taylor is older and more mature now, and for the most part, out of any drama. However, I just love to reminisce back to a time where her media training was lacking and drama followed her everywhere she went.