Taylor Swift kicked off her Reputation Tour Tuesday night in Glendale, Arizona, and besides sparkly costumes and pop hits, the singer appeared to call out Kim Kardashian.
Speaking to the audience about what she called a "low time" in her life, Swift said: "A couple of years ago, someone called me a snake on social media and it caught on. And then a lot of people called me a lot of names on social media. And I went through some really low times for a while because of it. I went through some times when I didn’t know if I was gonna get to do this anymore."
Kanye West's 2016 Life of Pablo song "Famous" ignited that round of snake-branding. Swift criticized the track for the lyric "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that bitch famous," but Mrs. Kardashian-West would later hop on Snapchat to share a phone call between West and Swift where Swift sounded cool with the song. Swift contended it was the word "bitch" that bothered her, and that it was never mentioned on the call. The Snapchat exposure went down on National Snake Day, July 16; after Kim pointed this out, her fans rushed to fill Taylor's Instagram comments with snake emojis.
"I guess the snakes…I wanted to send a message to you guys that if someone uses name-calling to bully you on social media and even if a lot of people jump on board with it, that doesn’t have to beat you. It can strengthen you instead," Swift told her Reputation Tour attendees.
It looks like Swift is flipping the whole snake thing on its head in her show, with giant serpents appearing in her stage setup. Also making an appearance, via onscreen interlude, is comedian Tiffany Haddish, who delivers the line: "Taylor can't come to the phone right now. Why? Because she's dead" during "Look What You Made Me Do," Billboard reports. Watch the clip below.
