The Year's 25 Top Pop Feuds: Slugging It Out With Swift vs. Perry, Azalea vs. Azealia, and More

The biggest challenge in coming up with a roundup of the year’s greatest music feuds? Trying not to have Azealea Banks show up in every spot on the list. Fortunately, 2014 provided lots of other attention-grabbing beefs. From usual combative suspects like Diddy, Drake, Eminem, and Jack White to unexpected bruisers like Bette Midler and Jordin Sparks, here are 25 very public spats that riveted music fans over the last 12 months.

Solange Knowles vs. Jay Z

We’re all still as perplexed as we ever were about what was going on there, but at least that elevator surveillance clip of their altercation gave us the most obsession-worthy piece of video since the Zapruder film.

Taylor Swift and Lorde vs. Katy Perry and Diplo

Nothing like a feud that goes on long enough to engage multiple BFs and BFFs. It supposedly all got started in 2013, when several dancers left Swift’s employ to re-team with their former boss, Perry. Swift got her licks in, as she will, by eventually writing a song, “Bad Blood,” that sure seemed to be about Perry, based on her semi-cryptic comments about an unnamed fellow superstar to Rolling Stone: “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.” Perry’s response was to tweet, “Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing,” referring to a Mean Girls villain. Then Perry’s boyfriend, the EDM dude Diplo, got in on the act, tweeting, “Someone should make a Kickstarter to get Taylor Swift a booty.” Swift’s recent bestie, Lorde, got back to Diplo on that one: “Should we do something about your tiny penis while we’re at it, hm.” Sadly, this one died down before the culture ever got into a serious discussion about whether two body-shamings make a right.

Bette Midler vs. Ariana Grande

We take particular pleasure in the cross-generational beefs we never imagined coming. In the great tradition of Sinead O’Connor taking on Miley Cyrus’s alleged sluttiness, this year we had the Divine Miss M bemoaning young Miss Grande taking the low road. “It’s always surprising to see someone like Ariana Grande with that silly high voice, a very wholesome voice, slithering around on a couch looking so ridiculous,” Midler told the Telegraph. “I mean, it’s silly beyond belief and I don’t know who’s telling her to do it. I wish they’d stop. But it’s not my business. I’m not her mother. Or her manager. Maybe they tell them that’s what you’ve got to do. Sex sells… Trust your talent. You don’t have to make a whore out of yourself to get ahead.” Grande’s response on Twitter: I’m just imitating you! “Bette was always a feminist who stood for women being able to do whatever the F they wanted without judgment!” Grande tweeted. “Not sure where that Bette went but I want that sexy mermaid back!!!” Apparently, when Midler wiggled her tail fins back in the day, that was actually proto-twerking.

Azealia Banks vs. Iggy Azalea

This beef’s been going on for years now, and Banks isn’t about to let it die. Apropos of nothing, she took to Twitter to accuse the white rapper from Australia of not being vocal about racial controversies in America, in the wake of the Eric Garner grand jury decision. “It’s funny to see people like Igloo Australia silent when these things happen,” Banks tweeted. “Black culture is cool, but black issues sure aren’t huh? If you’re down to ride with us b—— you gotta RIDE ALL THE WAY… I just really want to know what your fascination with black women is… Why do you want to act like us?” She threw in an additional provocation about Iggy supposedly only being in it for black guys’… physiques. Without naming her antagonist, Iggy retorted: “There’s more to sparking a change than trolling on social media. World issues shouldn’t be used as a poor excuse to promote fan battles.” Hey, missy, we’ll have none of that high-road stuff around here!

Eminem vs. Iggy Azalea and Lana Del Rey

Sometimes we have to look back through our notes at the end of the year in order to remember things like: Did Eminem threaten rape on Iggy Azalea and a punch in the face to Lana Del Rey? Or was it a punch for Iggy and rape for Lana? No, we had it right the first time. In the track “Vegas,” he rapped, “Put that s—- away, Iggy/You gon’ blow that rape whistle on me… scream!” She responded via Twitter: “I’m bored of the old men threatening young women as entertainment trend and much more interested in the young women getting $ trend. Zzzz… It’s especially awkward because my 14-year-old brother is the biggest Eminem fan and now the artist he admired says he wants to rape me. Nice!… Women in music have the bigger balls anyhow; we endure much more harassment and critic[ism].” As for Del Rey, he rapped, “Play nice, b——. I’ll punch Lana Del Rey in the face twice like Ray Rice in broad daylight in plain sight of elevator surveillance ‘til the head is bangin’ on the railin’… then celebrate with the Ravens.” Del Rey did not publicly get back to His Shadiness on that provocation.

Jordin Sparks vs. Jason Derulo

Asked about their split this fall after a three-year relationship, Derulo told Ryan Seacrest, “There was a lot of pressures of marriage. There was a lot of arguing and stuff like that that just weighed on our relationship over time.” Asked what kind of terms things ended on, Derulo said, “I wouldn’t say good terms. I’ll be lying if I said that…” No kidding. Sparks soon made the terms clearer when she released a mixtape that included a dis track with lyrics like: “’Member I deleted all my other guys’ numbers on my phone for you/’Member when you broke your neck and I had to wash your back for you/You probably don’t remember half the s—- that i did for you.”

Jack White vs. The Black Keys

That “Black and White” co-headlining tour we’ve fantasized doesn’t about doesn’t look any closer to fruition. White had previously made disparaging comments about the Black Keys in leaked emails between himself and his ex-wife, saying he didn’t want his child at the same school as their kids. The Keys’ Patrick Carney seemed to take it in stride, saying, “We’ve all said f—-ed-up s—- in private.” Then White added fuel to the fire in a Rolling Stone cover story this year: “There are kids at school who dress like everybody else, because they don’t know what to do, and there are musicians like that, too. I’ll hear TV commercials where the music’s ripping off sounds of mine, to the point I think it’s me. Half the time, it’s the Black Keys.” Soon after the story was published, he issued a public apology for that statement as well as quotes about Meg White and Adele.

The Black Keys vs. Justin Bieber

Patrick Carney can dish it out as well as he can take it. He used the pages of Rolling Stone himself to further comment on a long-running feud that had Beliebers on the attack. “Justin Bieber, like a f—-ing irresponsible a—hole, sicced 40 million Twitter followers on me because I paid him a compliment he didn’t understand… I mean, Justin Bieber is a f—-ing moron… Every time that he gets in trouble, you should look at his tweets the next day. It’s always like, ‘I love you guys so much, always believe, never stop believing.’ He’s feeding them the Kool-Aid more and more… It’s so manipulative! And whoever taught him that that was OK, whoever’s watching him and is like ‘that manipulation is acceptable,’ should be really ashamed of themselves.”

Snoop vs. Iggy Azalea and Nick Young

It seemed to start in a benign enough way, with Azalea demurring when a paparazzo asked if she’d like to work someday with Snoop. But it quickly escalated. Snoop posted a photo of a woman who appeared to be albino, saying it was Azalea without makeup; another photo comparing her to Marlon Wayons’s white-face character in White Chicks; and a video in which he threatened, “You’re f—-ing with the wrong n—-a! And your n—-a betta check you before I do” — a reference to Azalea’s African-American boyfriend, L.A. Lakers player Nick Young. She replied on Twitter: “Why would you post such a mean pic on Insta when you send your bodyguards to ask me for pictures every time we are at shows?” — additionally posting her own unflattering photo of Snoop with the caption, “When your drug addict aunt gets clean.” Young chimed in: “Ain’t nobody worried about no Snoop Lion… This dude just goin’ thru a midlife crisis.” Eventually, T.I. stepped in to get his pal Snoop to back off. The veteran rapper apologized to Azalea on video, although he helpfully added to TMZ, “Too much money on my mind to worry ‘bout a biiiiiych.”

Katy Perry vs. Miley Cyrus

Perry may have kissed a girl and liked it, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her standards. At a Cyrus concert in L.A., the performer came down to the front row, and there was an awkward exchange of kisses, and non-kisses, caught on video, with Perry resisting getting French with her fellow star. She told an Australian TV outlet that she’d just wanted to have “a friendly girl kiss, you know, as girls do,” but had to turn her head when Cyrus got friskier: “God knows where that tongue has been.” Miley didn’t appreciate the gentle jab, retorting on Twitter: “Girl if ur worried abt where tongues have been good thing ur ex boo is ur EX BOO cause we ALL know where THAT been.” This was not one of ersatz-lipstick-lesbianism’s finer moments.

Rihanna vs. NFL and CBS

Was she pushed or did she jump? CBS and the league reportedly dropped her and Jay Z’s song “Run This Town” from its usual airing before Thursday Night Football because it wouldn’t pair well with a segment the then-fresh Ray Rice beating case. She then tweeted: “CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? No, f—- you! Y’all are said for penalizing me for this… The audacity…” At that point, either the network pulled the plug on the song ever appearing on the football program again, or Roc Nation rescinded the license, depending on whom you believed.

Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams vs. Marvin Gaye’s Estate

The “Blurred Lines” creators were sued by Gaye’s heirs for allegedly appropriating “Got to Give It Up,” about which Thicke had once told an interviewer: “Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give it Up.’ I was like, ‘Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.’” Asked in a deposition about that quote, Thicke said, “With all due respect, I was high and drunk every time I did an interview last year.” He also said, “I was high on Vicodin and alcohol when I showed up at the studio,” and gave Williams virtually all the credit for the creation, saying his producer “wrote almost every single part of the song.” Hmmm — sounds like that one is in danger of turning into Thicke vs. Williams.

Danity Kane vs. Danity Kane

According to reports, group member Dawn Richard punched Aubrey O’Day in the head when she showed up at the studio and found O’Day and Shannon Bex recording without her. “During a recent group meeting,” O’Day said in a statement, “a business conversation took a turn for the worst when my group member punched me in the back of my head while I was speaking to another associate… This is the same information I provided to the police…” Needless to say, the group officially broke up… again. They did manage to cobble together enough material for a farewell album, DK3, but it peaked at No. 44.

Drake vs. Diddy

Even before these two brawled outside a Miami club in early December, Diddy had been claiming as long ago as June that Drake ripped off the song “0 to 100/The Catch Up,” which apparently had been offered to both of them some time earlier by the producer Boi-1Da. Drake went to the ER after the scuffle apparently exacerbated an old shoulder injury. Going back to February, Drake “hijacked” the microphone from Diddy at a New Orleans club, and apparently Diddy thinks the jacking only escalated from there. Now we know where Danity Kane learned their conflict resolution skills.

Scott Stapp vs. President Obama

Stapp was placed on a psychiatric hold in November, but has been at large and releasing wacked-out videos since his release. “He thinks he’s part of the CIA,” the Creed singer’s estranged wife, Jaclyn Stapp, said in a lengthy 911 call. “He has a bunch of paperwork in his backpack that [says] he’s a CIA agent and he was supposed to assassinate Obama.” A Secret Service spokesperson acknowledged they were aware of the rocker’s statements.

Demi Lovato vs. Lady Gaga

Gaga wallowed in being puked upon as part of her live-streamed South By Southwest performance, and Lovato was not amused. “Sad… As if we didn’t have enough people glamorizing eat[ing] disorders already,” she tweeted. “Putting the word ART in it isn’t a free card to do whatever you want without consequences,” she added, in an obvious challenge to the ARTPOP singer. Gaga’s performance-artist partner in the event, Millie Brown, fired back at Lovato and said the point of the vomiting stunt had nothing to do with bulimia. “There’s a clear difference between using my body to create something beautiful, to express myself and feel powerful,” Brown said, “rather than using it to punish myself and conform to society’s standards.” Well, of course we all got that! Duh.

Nicki Minaj vs. the Anti-Defamation League

ADL director (and Holocaust survivor) Abraham H. Foxman was not pleased with the lyric video for “Only,” which featured illustrations of Minaj seemingly cast as a dictator leading a totalitarian rally and bearing a Young Money insignia that vaguely resembled a swastika. The video “disturbingly evokes Third Reich propaganda and constitutes a new low for pop culture’s exploitation of Nazi symbolism,” he said. Her response: “I didn’t come up with the concept, but… I’d never condone Nazism in my art.” But then director Jeffrey Osborne made it worse for his client, not only refusing to apologize but even acknowledging that “the flags, armbands, and gas mask (and perhaps my use of symmetry?) are all representative of Nazis… I think it’s actually important to remind younger generations of atrocities that occurred in the past as a way to prevent them from happening in the future.” Silly ADL — how did it not grasp that making the star look like a Nazi in her own video was meant to warn young people against Nazism?

Lil Wayne vs. Birdman

Weezy wants off the Cash Money label, as every hip-hop fan by now knows, claiming they won’t put out his new record. “I was supposed to drop my new album Dec. 9, but due to technical difficulties I’m f—-ed up in a bad situation,” he said at a Vice event this month. “But I will be out of this soon and I do it for y’all. So put the motherf—-in’ fives up for Carter V.” Nicki Minaj, friend to both parties, is trying to keep the peace: “We’re not always the best of friends and chummy-chummy, but we’re a family and we love each other underneath it all,” she said on Sirius XM. “I’m praying that everything resolves itself like it always does with family affairs.” Birdman, for his part, has told associates that Weezy isn’t going anywhere.

Sinéad O’Connor vs. the American Music Awards

It wouldn’t be, well, a year if O’Connor weren’t mixing it up with somebody on her always riveting blog. The time, it was the AMAs, with O’Connor writing that she’d been contacted to appear on this year’s awards show, with a provocative twist. “Without (even up until today) informing their CEO, three Jewish men… employed by Dick Clark Productions had a meeting or series of meetings (in which he swore to me tonight they did not smoke crack, cocaine, weed, nor e-cigarettes) wherein it was decided that it would be ‘a great hook’ to ask Pope Francis to appear with me… It was decided that these three stooges would (in all seriousness) attempt to contact the Pope via his Twitter account alone, and via no other means… They didn’t get a response and consequently I’m now not doing the show. I never heard anything so warped and disrespectful to both the Pope and myself, as well as millions of Catholics…” The AMA did not respond on the record, but did reach out to TMZ to basically say: Her people called them, the Pope never came up, and that broad is… well, you know.

Paris Hilton vs. Deadmau5

The celebrated DJ was not impressed when Hilton won a Women’s Newcomer of the Year award at the NRJ DJ Awards. “Congrats on the NRJ award,” he tweeted. “What the f—- is an NRJ award?” He then compared her accomplishments to dating a Formula 1 driver and suddenly hopping on the racing circuit. “God, even I know my f—-ing limits,” Deadmau5 added. Her response: “I find it hilarious when others try to badmouth me in order to get attention. Sorry that I’m #Killingit while doing what I love & live for.” Vroom vroom. 

Kesha vs. Dr. Luke

This one counts less as a feud than internecine warfare. Earlier in the year, Kesha had already accused her former producer of contributing to her eating disorder by, among other things, allegedly calling her “a fat f—-ing refrigerator.” Then things went nuclear in October when the singer filed a lawsuit claiming abuse of every kind — physical, verbal, emotional, sexual — over the 10-year period they worked together. Part of the producer’s defense was that Kesha had denied in a 2011 deposition that Dr. Luke had ever made advances toward her. Even in the days after Christmas, the drama escalated, with Luke filing legal documents saying Kesha lied about being forced to sing “Die Young” to distance herself from controversy around the Sandy Hook shootings. This is a beef that will die hard, if at all.

Morrissey vs. Harvest Records

If Morrissey is going to issue a series of public broadsides against his British label, you know they’re going to at least be articulate and entertaining. Raging against the supposed lack of promotion for World Peace is None of Your Business, Morrissey carped — among many other things — that “the TV ad never appeared and my hackles bristled as my bristles heckled. The label responded with frosty aloofness, and I suddenly realized that we were not, after all, of the same species. I ploughed into them insisting upon ‘proper band videos, where the band play and I sing’ - an evidently confusing concept that required seven weeks of explanation, detailed graphs and several drawn up maps… All you need to do is disagree with the vanity of the label boss and your beheading will be slotted in between bottles of the most average champagne on the market.” He claimed he’d been dropped by Harvest, which apparently wasn’t the case at the time, although it became so. He began selling “F—- Harvest” T-shirts… which the label liked so much, they began selling identical shirts on their own site.

Cee Lo Green vs. Twitter

Not every celeb should be entrusted with his own Twitter password. After pleading no contest in a case where he was charged with furnishing Ecstasy to a woman, he let loose with a series of tweets in which he said, among other things, that “people who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!” He quickly deleted the tweets, calling them “idiotic” and “untrue,” then (temporarily) his entire account. "I truly and deeply apologize for the comments attributed to me on Twitter,” he wrote, with the “attributed to” part seeming to imply that Green didn’t remember being behind his own offensive fusillade of tweets.

Chris Brown vs. MTV hosts

Tamar Braxton and Adrienne Bailon, co-hosts of MTV’s The Real, had some things to say about why Karrueche Tran puts up with Brown’s (alleged) cheating. And so he had some things to say about their faces. The singer went on Instagram to call Bailon a “trout mouth ass b——“ and add, “Won’t u the same b—— that was f—-ing wit married men?” As for Braxton, she was a “Muppet face ass” who “take(s) the role of the ugly sister.” “Dat plastic surgery f—-ed yo face up,” he added. As Gene Kelly would say: Dignity. Always dignity.

Chris Brown vs. Drake

Feud… bromance… or both? You couldn’t follow this one without a scorecard in 2014. In early July, it seemed as if their beef had turned to a lovely stew, as they went into the studio together and even made fun of their feud in a skit at the ESPYs. But by the end of the month, Brown was taking to Instagram to seemingly make fun of Drake’s song “0-100 (Real Quick).” Was the eternal fight back on, or was this just friendly ribbing? Come December, it didn’t look like any more studio time or sketches were in the offing, as Brown accused his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Karrueche Tran, of cheating with him on Drake. Here’s an idea: let’s just induct both Drake and Brown into the Beef Hall of Fame and refocus our efforts on fresher feuds in 2015.