As Swift—who’d additionally addressed the tune throughout her Album of the Yr acceptance speech on the 2016 Grammys—has defined, the difficulty was larger than the lyric and took under consideration her historical past with West.
In 2019, she instructed Rolling Stone that reconnecting with him after the 2009 VMAs incident “was therapeutic some childhood rejection or one thing from once I was 19″ and that she’d simply wished West’s respect.
However then the 2015 VMAs occurred. And whereas West referred to as Swift “gracious” for presenting him with the award, he additionally stated, “You know the way many occasions they introduced Taylor was gonna give me the award as a result of it bought them extra scores?” In that second, Swift instructed the journal, she felt a “chill” in her physique.
“I spotted he’s so two-faced,” she continued. “That he needs to be good to me behind the scenes, however then he needs to look cool, stand up in entrance of everybody and discuss s–t. And I used to be so upset. He wished me to return discuss to him after the occasion in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he despatched this massive, massive factor of flowers the following day to apologize. And I used to be like, ‘ what? I actually don’t need us to be on dangerous phrases once more. So no matter, I’m simply going to maneuver previous this.’”
And she or he thought they’d—till she heard “Well-known.”
“So when he will get on the telephone with me, and I used to be so touched that he could be respectful and, like, inform me about this one line within the tune,” she added to the outlet. “And I used to be like, ‘OK, good. We’re again on good phrases.’ After which once I heard the tune, I used to be like, ‘I’m executed with this. If you wish to be on dangerous phrases, let’s be on dangerous phrases, however simply be actual about it.'”
