The incident went viral, and even Barack Obama was caught calling Kanye a “jackass” for his actions. Diss tracks from both artists followed – including Kanye’s 2016 track “Famous” and Taylor’s 2017 song “Look What You Made Me Do” – and the duo made several comments in interviews about each other and their infamous clash.

The hashtag trended worldwide in response to the HUGE debacle over some controversial lyrics in Kanye’s song, “Famous”. Years after the VMAs, Kanye wrote the lyrics “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous”. After the song’s release, Taylor’s publicist publicly commented that Kanye did not ask for Taylor’s approval over the song.

What followed was a total mess. Kanye’s then wife, Kim Kardashian, shared edited clips of a phone call in which Taylor seemed to approve the song’s lyrics. Consequently, people began to turn on Taylor for appearing to lie about not approving the song. However, it was soon revealed that while she had gently approved the mention of her in his song, Taylor was not aware that Kanye would be referring to her as a “bitch”.

She told Rolling Stone in 2019 that she was “done” with playing nice, and that if Kanye wanted to be on “bad terms” they could be, but he should “just be real about it”. Since Reputation, Taylor hasn’t dragged Kanye again, much less anyone. Kanye on the other hand…

I kind of love for this beef, mainly because of all the songs to come out of it! It all seems to have started over an album cover – Nicki’s 2007 Sucka Free mixtape, to be precise. The rapper posed on the cover in a similar way to Kim in her 1996 Hardcore album poster insert, which sparked comparisons between the two. However, Kim wasn’t sure whether Nicki’s action were a loving reference or just an appropriation of her brand.

Three years later, during a gig with Ray J, Kim spoke about Nicki for the first time saying, “we love her. We just want her to pay homage. If you don’t pay homage then fuck you.” Things escalated after that, with both Kim and Nicki namedropping each other in interviews and mentioning each other in their songs.

Even though Nicki’s album went platinum and launched her career in the best of ways, she was still pressed by Kim’s antics. She would later refer to the incident in her song “Tragedy”, rapping, “You was hot when Shaq teamed up with Penny/ Man, you was Magic/I mean, look at ya now ho, you just tragic”. She also released “Stupid H*e” on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded – The Re-Up, appearing to take aim at Kim once more.

Kim responded by sampling a remixed version of “Flawless” that Nicki had made with Beyoncé, in which Nicki referred to herself as “the queen of rap”. “Am I trippin’ or did this hoe just say my name ? / Queen of rap, fuck outta here”, Kim rapped in her version, even going so far as to replace Nicki’s image on the “Flawless” album cover with her own face.

Later, Kim would collaborate with another rival of Nicki’s – Remy Ma – on the track “Wake Me Up”, in she spat, “you bitches ain’t humble enough.” That was in 2017, and since then, the feud seems to be pretty much dormant.

As opposed to some of the SAGAS on this list, this was a somewhat brief beef, but nonetheless iconic. Ciara appeared on E!’s Fashion Police and called out Rihanna, saying “I ran into her recently at a party and she wasn’t the nicest”. Rihanna responded almost immediately via Twitter, writing “My bad ci, did I 4get to tip u? #howrudeofme”.

The two hashed it out on Twitter a bit before Rihanna relented, telling Ciara that she loved her, but that she “hurt [her] feelings real bad on TV”. After making up, their feud was reignited again in 2013 when Rihanna posted a clip laughing with her friends at Ciara’s newest single, “Body Party”. Ciara spoke about being hurt by the video, but Rihanna never responded.

This one is a longggggg-ass feud, and it all seems stem from the fact that Cher thinks Madonna is “rude”. The pair first met when Cher invited Madonna and Sean Penn to her house for a dinner. “She just was so rude to everybody”, Cher shared in a 1991 interview with Steve Kmetko. “It seems to me that she’s got so much that she doesn’t have to act the way that she acts, like a spoiled brat all the time.”

In the same year, in an interview with Terry Wogan, Cher doubled-down on her comments, praising Madonna’s creativity and marketing skills, but criticising her further. When asked about her “best friend Madonna”, the singer said “she’s unbelievably creative cos she’s not unbelievably talented, she’s not beautiful.”

When a fan once asked Cher how she would be celebrating Madonna’s birthday on Twitter, Cher replied by saying she would be getting a “colonic”. Later, during a game segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Cher iconically replied to the question “name three celebrities you’d want to do a duet with” by saying “Adele, P!nk, and not Madonna”.

The pair seem to be united on the important things, however, as they appeared together in 2017 for the Women’s March in Washington. This was held after the inauguration of their common enemy, Donald Trump.

This rift was a true moment back in the ’00s. As revealed by Katy on The Late Show With James Corden, the whole thing appears to have started over a perceived theft of backup dancers, and ended up snowballing into an epic showdown, replete with diss tricks and many a celeb taking sides.

In 2014, Taylor told Rolling Stone that she was never sure if they were friends, and went on to describe her and Katy as “straight-up enemies”. She “did something so horrible”, the singer alleged: “She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me.”

Years on, after her break-up with Calvin Harris, Taylor was dragged by the DJ and producer. “I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy”, Calvin tweeted after it came out that Taylor had secretly co-written his hit song, “This Is What You Came For”. Katy followed up by retweeting an old tweet that said, “Time, the ultimate truth teller.”

By this time, Taylor had released “Bad Blood”, which is generally believed to be about Katy, who responded in kind with the song “Swish Swish”. Soon after, Katy appeared on James Corden’s show, calling for an apology and an end to the feud. This wouldn’t happen until 2018, when Katy extended a literal olive branch – she left it in Taylor’s dressing room – and Taylor accepted. A year later, Katy appeared in Taylor’s video for her song “You Need to Calm Down”, quashing the beef once-and-for-all.

Probably one of the most iconic and terrible feuds of all time, Tupac and Biggie began as friends before becoming bitter rivals. The MCs met on the set of Poetic Justice, and soon enough, Biggie was invited to stay at Tupac’s LA home, to perform with him, and even to go into business with him.

Things turned really sour really quickly when Tupac was robbed at gunpoint and shot five times outside of Quad Recording Studios in New York. Apparently, Biggie and P. Diddy were inside the studio at the time, which led Tupac to believe that Biggie had something to do with the attack, something the latter strenuously denied.

While Tupac was in jail, Biggie released his infamous track “Who Shot Ya”, which Tupac inferred as an admission of his guilt. Biggie denied any involvement in Tupac’s shooting, and said the song had been written before the event. “Even if that song ain’t about me”, Tupac told VIBE in response, “you should be, like, ‘I’m not putting it out, ’cause he might think it’s about him.'”

Tupac later responded with “Hit ‘Em Up”, taking aim at Biggie in a BIG way: “I ain’t got no motherfucking friends/That’s why I fucked your bitch, you fat motherfucker”, he rapped. Biggie told VIBE that he was hurt and surprised that Tupac genuinely thought he was out to get him. But before they could straighten things out, Tupac was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

Though suspicions fell on Biggie, he told reporters at the time that he’d “never wish death on nobody”. Less than a year later, Biggie would also be the victim of a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. Both murders remain unsolved.

As two pioneering performers with a lot in common, MJ and Prince had a sort of rivalry going for many years. However, Michael disdained of comparisons to Prince. In fact, in tapes recorded for his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalker, Michael said he felt like Prince’s “opponent”, before describing him as over-emotional, rude, competitive, and nasty.

Where does this all come from, one might wonder? Well, it could be that Prince rejected working with Michael not once but twice, and MJ was a little bitter. In 1985, Michael brought some of the world’s biggest artists together for “We Are The World”, a charity single in aid of African famine relief. Prince refused to work on the project (although he did donate a song to the album), and later rebuffed Michael again on his offer to collaborate on “Bad”.

CBS/Niwa Lang

According to legendary producer Quincy Jones, Michael told James to bring up Prince right after he had joined him on stage, saying, “I dare him to follow me.” Prince gave a great set, but then accidentally fell off stage, which seemed to amuse Michael. In the Moonwalker tapes he says, “he made a fool of himself… I was so embarrassed”. Quincy also alleges that Prince was so embarrassed by the whole thing, he waited outside the venue in his limo with the intention of running MJ over!

By 2006, both men were legends, but the feud wasn’t over yet. According to will.i.am via music journalist Steve Knopper, during his Vegas residency, Prince came up to where Michael Jackson was secretly sitting and aggressively played his guitar in his face. Michael was attending the concert because will.i.am had invited him. He later asked the Black Eyed Peas frontman, “Will, why do you think Prince was playing bass in my face?”

“He’s always been not nice to me”, he alledgedly told will.i.am. “Everybody says Prince is this great legendary Renaissance man and I’m just a song-and-dance man, but I wrote ‘Billie Jean’ and I wrote ‘We Are the World’ and I’m a songwriter too.'”

If you thought celebrity feuds in the music world were confined to the pop and R’n’B genres, think again. This one seems to be stem from a disagreement between Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain. Initially, Axl was keen to work with Kurt and the rest of Nirvana, but according to Dave Grohl, that wasn’t ever gonna happen. “Axl was a really big fan of us… they wanted us to open [but] Nirvana didn’t want to turn into Guns N’ Roses. So Kurt started talking shit in interviews and then Axl started talking back.”

Things came to a head at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, when Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses squared off backstage. Prior to the awards, Axl had called Kurt and his wife Courtney Love “junkies”, and said if their baby was “born deformed [they] both ought to go to prison.”

According to Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich, Axl confronted Kurt at the ’92 VMAs, and then Courtney stirred the pot, causing Axl to threaten the pair with violence. The argument spread out to involve both bands, as well as Axl’s then-girlfriend, Stephanie Seymour.

Stephanie asked if Courtney was a model, to which Courtney hit back, “no, are you a brain surgeon?” Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff Mckagan began harassing Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, the latter of which would go on to jeeringly sing Axl’s name during their live performance of “Lithium” that night.

The feud dissipated after Kurt’s death in 1994. Guns N’ Roses’ Matt Sorum reached out to Dave Grohl to send his condolences, and in 2010, Duff Mckagan apologised to Krist Novoselic in an open letter. Dave even sent his guitar throne to Axl after he injured his foot during the 2016 Guns N’ Roses reunion tour!

It’s not just rival bands and musical contemporaries who feud – in happens ~within~ bands too. One of the more lengthy (and hilarious) examples is the ongoing spat between Oasis brothers Noel and Liam. According to Liam, they’ve been fighting since day dot, but the feud seems to have first picked up steam at a gig they played in LA in 1994, in which Liam hit Noel with a tambourine and walked offstage.

Over the years they’ve squabbled a lot, walking out on tours, dragging each other in interviews, and even pranking each other (Liam is apparently afraid of ghosts, and Noel would move furniture around to freak him out). In 2009, Noel quit Oasis for good, saying that he “simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

Since the year of the band’s break-up, Liam has repeatedly insulted Noel on Twitter calling him “beige”, a “potato”, and “Noel Katie Hopkins Gallagher”. He even told Q magazine, “Lots of people say I need to chill out about Noel… Not until they stop Twitter. That cunt will always get it from me.”

In 2017, Liam criticised Noel for not getting involved in the One Love Manchester benefit concert. Later, Noel told The Sunday Times that Liam needed “to see a psychiatrist”. Liam clapped back on Twitter, calling Noel and his wife “chameleons”. Noel address the feud for a final time in 2017, telling i-D magazine, “it got personal. So it’s like, fuck what he does. As long as he keeps promoting my record, there’s a good boy.”

Since the split of One Direction back in 2016, A LOT has changed. Many of the band members have spoken out about their experience making music together, with Zayn not pulling any punches about his time in 1D. After being the first to leave in 2015, Zayn gave several interviews calling the band’s music “generic as fuck”, and saying he wouldn’t listen to any of it now. A year later, he told radio station Beats 1 that he didn’t even want to be in the band.

By 2017, Zayn had admitted he wasn’t friends with all the members of One Direction, and he didn’t talk to any of them anymore. Indeed, Liam told GQ that Zayn “didn’t even say goodbye” when he left the band, and in 2019, Louis Tomlinson also spoke about his strained relationship with Zayn. Lest we forget that Louis and Zayn became embroiled in a Twitter spat back in 2015 with producer Naughty Boy, in which Zayn asked Louis, “remember when you had a life and stopped making bitchy comments about mine?”.

Louis had also been disappointed that during his 2016 live performance on The X Factor in tribute to his late mother, Zayn was the only former 1D member not to show up, having previously promised to. As of now, the pair have not reconciled, with Louis telling Zach Sang in September 2022 that he wishes Zayn well.

From claiming he’s the “anti-christ version” of Harry Styles, to admitting (like Zayn) that he wasn’t close to most of his bandmates, Liam has had a lot to say about 1D over the years as well. However, his most well-known comments came last year when he appeared on the Impaulsive podcast with Logan Paul. Of his single “Strip That Down”, Liam bragged, “I think it outsold everybody within the band”. Fans were quick to point out that this wasn’t the case, and that Harry’s “Watermelon Sugar” was in fact the most streamed song out of all the boys’ solo work.

Liam’s claim that 1D started with him was also proved to be shaky – there’s a deep pe on that here – with many doubting Liam’s frontman capabilities. As well as this, Liam told Logan Paul that one of his One Direction bandmates had thrown him up against a wall, and that he had threatened him in response, but refused to say who it was. Liam also admitted to disliking Zayn, but always being “on his side”.

Mariah is probably one of the first people one thinks of when one hears the word “pa”, and many will remember her iconic words about JLo in an interview in the early ’00s: “I don’t know her”. Truthfully, their feud goes back to at least 2001.

According to Mariah, her ex – Sony Music executive Tommy Mottola – attempted to “derail” her career by taking a sample she was using in her song “Loverboy” out from under her, and using it in JLo’s hit, “I’m Real”. This left Mariah scrambling, and she had to change the plans for her song, which also included collaborating with Ja Rule. Ja Rule, of course, would end up being a featured artist on “I’m Real”.

When asked about JLo, Mariah mostly criticised her singing ability, and made it clear she was not a fan. In 2016, she attempted to clarify her infamous “I don’t know her” comment, telling Andy Cohen, “it’s not personal… it wasn’t like, I don’t know who she is. Of course I do”. She also said she was “forgetful”. The “forgetful” part maybe struck a chord with Jennifer, who told Wendy Williams in that same year that she and Mariah had met many times, and that the elusive chanteuse was, “forgetful, I guess”.

Despite JLo’s affirmation that the pair HAD met, she later told Andy Cohen in 2018 that they DIDN’T know each other after all. JLo also referenced Mariah’s comments about her, calling them “not the greatest” and something to do with “things that have happened in the past that I’m not really aware of”. Jen insisted there was no feud on her part, and that she’s a fan of Mariah’s, but I think it’s clear something’s not quite adding up as in a 2016 interview with TMZ, Mariah also said “I still don’t know her!”

I guess it was always gonna happen that Gaga would be compared to Madonna – their similarities ARE glaring, after all. Early on, Madonna was all for Gaga, until Gaga released “Born This Way”, which many believed to be a rip-off of Madonna’s 1989 song “Express Yourself”. Madonna iconically called the song “reductive” in an interview with Cynthia McFadden, which I guess Gaga took to heart.

The singer defended her 2011 track, telling NME that the only similarity between the two songs was the chord progression: “The same one that’s been in disco music for the last 50 years.” Madonna would go on to perform a mashup of the songs on her 2012 MDNA tour, splicing in a reprise of “She’s Not Me” for added emphasis.

Madge also had several demos leaked in December 2014, including the track “Two Steps Behind Me”, in which she says “You’re a copycat/Where is my royalty… Did you study me hard enough?/You’re never gonna be/You’re just a wannabe me.”

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