Over the course of her career, Taylor Swift has undergone quite the evolution. The musician first shot to fame as a doe-eyed artist in the late 2000s, back when she was still a teenager. In the years that followed, she slowly became more and more rebellious, until finally - in 2017 - she announced that "the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now. Why? Because she's dead." And from the ashes, the current iteration of T Swift was born.
But her growth as an artist wasn't all plain sailing. During her transition from cute country singer to wannabe badass, she's faced a number of set backs, not least of which is her seemingly never-ending beef with the Kardashians.
In a new column for Elle magazine, Swift opened up about some of the hardest parts of her career, and claims that the famous family topped the list. She didn't name Kim K directly, but she did mention a very famous interaction between the two of them, and anyone who knows anything about their former feud was instantly aware that she was referring to the reality star.
"A few years ago, someone started an online hate campaign by calling me a snake on the internet," she wrote. "The fact that so many people jumped on board with it led me to feeling lower than I’ve ever felt in my life."
The bad blood had begun many years before that, of course, when Kanye West interrupted Swift's award acceptance speech at the 2009 VMAs. "Imma let you finish," he famously said, "but Beyonce had one of the best music videos of all time."
As the feud grew, though, Swift found it harder and harder to deal with. At one point, she even considered quitting music.
In her column, though, she explained that the only way to get over bullying like that is by "learning to laugh".
"I can’t tell you how hard I had to keep from laughing every time my 63-foot inflatable cobra named Karyn appeared onstage in front of 60,000 screaming fans," she said. "It’s the Stadium Tour equivalent of responding to a troll’s hateful Instagram comment with “lol.” It would be nice if we could get an apology from people who bully us, but maybe all I’ll ever get is the satisfaction of knowing I could survive it, and thrive in spite of it."
But she also seems to have learned a lot from her drama with Kim K and co, as she noted in her column that, "Being sweet to everyone all the time can get you into a lot of trouble."
"While it may be born from having been raised to be a polite young lady, this can contribute to some of your life’s worst regrets if someone takes advantage of this trait in you," she said. "Grow a backbone, trust your gut, and know when to strike back. Be like a snake - only bite if someone steps on you."
She may have hit rock bottom when Kim K called her a snake, then - but she's certainly bounced back now.