Taylor Swift was expected to call out her exes on her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department — but it was Kim Kardashian who received the harshest blow.
In the second batch of songs for the album, released in the early hours of Friday, April 19, one song, “thanK you aIMee,” appeared to have random letters capitalized in its title. Upon closer look, however, eagle-eyed fans quickly realized the capital letters spelled out a name: Kim.
Swifties will know that Swift, 34, has long placed hidden messages in her lyrics via capitalization, a tradition she upheld for every album until the release of Reputation. She brought the game back, however, when releasing clues about TTPD leading up to the record’s release.
Beyond it’s title, “thanK you aIMee” wastes no time pulling punches, with Swift opening the song by claiming that when she pictures her hometown — presumably Los Angeles — there’s a “bronze spray-tanned statue” of “Aimee” with a “plaque underneath it that threatens to push me down the stairs at our school.”
The track is riddled with high school allegory, positioning “Aimee” as Swift’s teenage-style bully that the pop star one day dreamed of besting.
“All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F—k you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin’,” she seethes on the track, before giving her nemesis some credit: “But I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”
Elsewhere in the song, Swift argues that it was never a “fair fight” between the two women, or a “clean kill.” She alludes to “Aimee” — or let’s just say it, Kardashian — “stomping across” her “grave” and writing headlines “laughing at each baby step I’d take.”
Swift and Kardashian’s feud has a long history, which began with the reality star’s now ex-husband, Kanye West, hopping on stage at the MTV VMAs in 2009 to declare that Beyoncé deserved an award that Swift had just won. In 2016, Swift called West out for rapping the line “Me and Taylor still might have sex / I made that b—h famous” in one of his songs, causing Kardashian to come to his defense by releasing a phone conversation between the two musicians.
Kardashian also posted a bunch of snakes for “National Snake Day” that year to call out Swift. The singer came back with a vengeance for her 2017 “revenge” album Reputation, opening up about the feud in an essay with Elle two years later.
“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,” she wrote for the outlet before turning 30 in 2019.
Swift then reignited the beef in 2020 when the full version of her leaked phone conversation with Kardashian surfaced online. At the time, Swift took to her Instagram Stories to note that the new footage proved she “was telling the truth the whole time.” She called out Kardashian for leaking the video on Snapchat in the first place.
“You know, the one that was illegally recorded, that somebody edited and manipulated in order to frame me and put me, my family, and fans through hell for 4 years…,” Swift wrote. Kardashian, meanwhile, claimed that Swift was “lying” about what went down.
In 2021, Kardashian surprised fans by praising Swift and her music during an episode of the “Honestly With Bari Weis” podcast. “I really like a lot of her songs,” she stated when asked about her favorite track of Swift’s. “They’re all super cute and catchy. I’d have to look in my phone to get a name.”
If “thanK you aIMee” is any indication, Swift has not moved on in the same way. In fact, the song claims that Kardashian’s words are “still just ringing in my head.” Swift’s mom, Andrea, is also referenced, with Swift declaring, “Everyone knows that my mother is as a saintly woman / But she used to say she wished that you were dead.”
In the bridge, Swift postulates that perhaps Kardashian has “reframed’ the feud in a way that has allowed her to let go, where ”in your mind you never beat my spirit black and blue.”
Swift then points out that she’s protected Kardashian’s identity on the track with a name change and no “defining clues.” (Of course, not really, as the entire song is one big neon light pointing in Kardashian’s direction, right down to the title.).
The final lines of the track seem to poke fun at Kardashian saying she likes Swift’s music, with the Grammy winner guessing that maybe Kardashian’s children — North, 10, Saint, 8, Chicago, 6, and Psalm, 4, whom she shares with West — will enjoy her songs, too.
“And one day, your kid comes home singin’ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you,” Swift quips.
She finishes by giving Kardashian one last note of earnest appreciation. “Our town, it looks so small from way up here,” she says. “Thank you, Aimee.”
The Tortured Poets Department is out now.
