Behold: A Comprehensive Timeline of Katy Perry and Taylor Swift’s Feud

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It’s been a hot minute since Taylor Swift released 1989 and set the Katy Perry fight rumors in motion, but now, the bad blood’s all gone. Years ago, however, Katy and Taylor had one of the biggest music feuds in the past decade (yes, even counting the Taylor and Kanye West thing, which fullly chugged along for literal YEARS). But how did Katy and Taylor get there? Let’s walk through it.

September 2008: Katy and Taylor are photographed together on the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards.

2009: The singers tweet their mutual admiration of one another throughout the year, and in December, Katy wishes Taylor a happy birthday.

January 2010: Taylor and Katy joke around backstage at the Grammys.

November 2011: They hug at the American Music Awards.

February 2013: The awards show hug evolves into a distant hand clasp at the Grammys.

December 2013: Here’s where things get a little messier. Lockhart Brownlie, a dancer who worked with Katy on her California Dreams Tour, gives an interview where he discusses working with both Katy and Taylor. According to Lockhart, he and two other Katy dancers got jobs with Taylor’s Red Tour but left early to join Katy’s Prismatic World Tour because he’d already worked with her on California Dreams and loved it. “We were with Katy for two and a half years, she’s like family to us, so we were like, ‘Absolutely,’” he explained. “We weren’t really dancing in Taylor’s tour anyway, so I had gotten a little bored.”

September 2014: Taylor appears on the cover of Rolling Stone to promote her new album 1989. She says this about the meaning of “Bad Blood,” which she says is about another artist:

Internet sleuths immediately deduce that Taylor is likely talking about Katy, and Katy tweets this in response:

October 2014: Taylor releases her album 1989, which includes “Bad Blood.”

February 2015: Us Weekly reports that Grammy organizers are trying to keep Katy and Taylor separate during the awards show because their feud is THAT bad.

March 2015: In an interview with The Telegraph, Taylor says she will never, ever discuss Katy on the record. “I’m not giving them anything to write about,” she declares. “I’m never going to talk about her in my interview. It’s not going to happen.”

May 2015: Taylor debuts the “Bad Blood” music video at the Billboard Music Awards.

July 2015: After Taylor gets into a public squabble with Nicki Minaj about that year’s VMA nominations, Katy, without naming names, questions the logic behind Taylor’s “pitting women against each other” argument.

July 2016: In the aftermath of his breakup from Taylor and the revelation that she cowrote “This Is What You Came For,” Calvin Harris tweets that he won’t allow Taylor to bury him “like Katy.” Again, Katy doesn’t name names but tweets this probably-related Hillary Clinton GIF:

May 2017: Asked if her new album will include a response to “Bad Blood,” Katy tells Entertainment Weekly that “there is no one thing that’s calling out any one person” but adds that “everything has a reaction or a consequence, so don’t forget about that.” Around this time, Calvin announces that Katy collaborated with him on a track for his new album, out in June.

Ten days after the EW interview, Katy releases “Swish Swish” featuring Nicki Minaj. It includes lyrics like “Don’t you come for me” and “Your game is tired, you should retire.”

Katy claims the song is not about Taylor, but Taylor’s friend Ruby Rose slams it anyway. According to Katy, the song is an “anti-bullying” anthem.

Joseph Kahn, who directed Taylor’s “Bad Blood” video, also calls out the “diss track” on Twitter.

During the Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special, Katy openly discusses the Taylor feud with James Corden. “Honestly, it’s really like she started it and it’s time for her to finish it,” she says.

June 2017: Speaking to NME, Katy says she’s not letting go of whatever’s going on with Taylor: “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 [her fans]. That’s so messed up!”

Later that day, Taylor shocks the world by releasing her entire discography to Spotify, some three years after speaking out against streaming services and, more important, on the same day as the release of Katy’s new album Witness. When asked about Taylor’s move on the Today show, Katy says, “I don’t know. I can only do me.”

On June 11, in an interview with Ariana Huffington on her Thrive Global Podcast, Katy surprises everyone and says she’s “ready to let it go” and apologize to Taylor. “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?” She continues:

Two days later, during her weekend-long Witness live-stream event, Katy changes the lyrics on “Swish Swish,” switching “Don’t you come for me, oh, not today” to “God bless you on your journey, oh, baby girl” in the first verse.

July 2017: In an interview with Australia’s Today show, Katy says she only has positive feelings about Taylor. “I mean, I love her, I always have. We’ve had our differences, but I just continue to say, ‘God bless her on her journey.’”

August 2017: Kendrick Lamar calls Katy and Taylor’s situation “some real beef” in an interview with Rolling Stone. “That’s far beyond my concern. I have to stay away from that, for sure.”

Katy, meanwhile, tells SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up that she hasn’t heard back from Taylor in regards to ending their feud. “Listen, I’d love for the beef to end. I’d love to take it off the BBQ. I’m down, but I haven’t heard anything of it.”

After days of teasing, Taylor announces details about her sixth studio album, Reputation, on social media, with the first single arriving Thursday, August 24, the same day as the release of Katy’s music video for “Swish Swish,” which definitely had a few references about the song’s unnamed muse.

May 2018: Katy changes tactics, and instead of giving interviews about the fight, she sends Taylor a literal olive branch as a symbol of peace instead.

Taylor posts a video of it, saying “Thank you, Katy,” and you can see Katy also sent a note with “miscommunications” and “deeply sorry” written on it.

June 2019: Any doubt that Katy and Taylor are cool now is out the window, because Katy posts a plate of cookies presumably from Taylor with the words “peace at last” written in frosting on the plate. “Feels good @TaylorSwift,” she writes in the caption.

And then! As if that weren’t enough, Katy makes a cameo in Taylor’s new music video, “You Need to Calm Down,” as the hamburger to Taylor’s french fries.

Saying buh-bye to bad blood has never looked so delicious. Taylor tells as much to Greg James on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show.

“We have been on really good terms for a while,” she says. “But the first time we saw each other was at this party, and it was just very clear to both of us that everything was different. That we had grown up. That we had grown past allowing ourselves to be pitted against each other. It just was really, really clear that we remembered how much we had in common. Both of us have been in a really good place for a while, but I don’t know if either of us knew if we were gonna talk about it publicly.”

Taylor sent Katy a text laying out the video concept, and Katy was all for it.

“When I thought of this concept for the video and I wrote the treatment, I thought, ‘I’m just gonna ask her if she’d be interested in this, but I would be totally fine if she’d rather keep it private.’ But I sent her a long synopsis of the entire video and she was like, ‘I would love for us to be a symbol of redemption and forgiveness!’”

“I didn’t think of the burger and fries costume until she wore the burger to the Met Gala after-party and I was like, ‘That is amazing.’ I kept thinking...we are gonna have this moment in the video...and if it’s us wearing normal clothes and hugging, it won’t really fit....So I was like, ‘Can we do a burger and fries as a metaphor for two people who belong together? And people who are a perfect pair?’ And she thought it was really funny! So we did it.”

That same month, an ET source says Katy might even extend a wedding invitation to Taylor Swift. Boy, how times have changed!

Us right now:

March 2020: Despite rumors that Katy would invite Taylor to her wedding, Katy says she and Taylor aren’t that close since ending their feud. Katy dishes to Stellar, “Well, we don’t have a very close relationship because we are very busy, but we text a lot.” Understandable!

May 2020: Fans think they find evidence that Taylor collaborated with Katy on “Daisies” but ’twas a sad day when they realized they’d have to wait a little longer for a duet.

July 2020: During an appearance on Capital Breakfast With Roman Kemp, Katy addresses the random rumors that she and Taylor are actually related and jokingly replies, “Well, we fight like cousins.” She then adds, “Wow, I’m going to have to ask her if this is true or if we should, like, get blood tests together or something,” basically proving that there’s still no beef between them anymore.

February 2024: Katy is spotted in *checks notes* Sydney, Australia in the same VIP tent as *checks notes again* Rita Ora and Travis Kelce during night one of Taylor's Eras Tour in Accor Stadium. And, yes, fans everywhere quite literally lose their sh*t thinking about what the singer's reaction will be when “Bad Blood” (again, a track highly speculated to be about Katy) is performed.

Luckily, the vibes are nothing but positive, since Katy is seen dancing and having a good time!

BRB, manifesting a collab between these two immediately!!!!

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