Taylor Swift Finally Tells Her Side of the Kanye West Feud: "I Realized He Is So Two-Faced"

Taylor Swift is telling her side of the story in Rolling Stone's October issue. In the magazine cover story, which hits stands on Oct. 1, the "Lover" singer gets completely candid about the crazy past three years of her life. In addition to talking about new beginnings, including her recent Lover album and her mended friendship with Katy Perry, Taylor also opens up about the darker moments in her life, like her feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian and what really went down during that infamous phone call. Let's just say, she does not hold back! See some of her best quotes ahead.

Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

On how her reignited feud with Kanye West really went down: "The world didn't understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a b*tch. That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn't just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things.

I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me — because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me. When someone doesn't respect you so loudly and says you literally don't deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, 'This guy who's antagonizing me, I just want his approval.' But that's where I was. And so we'd go to dinner and stuff. And I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19. But the 2015 VMAs come around. He's getting the Vanguard Award. He called me up beforehand — I didn't illegally record it, so I can't play it for you. But he called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hour-long conversation, and he's like, 'I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me,' and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, 'MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!' And I'm standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk sh*t. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn't go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, 'You know what? I really don't want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I'm just going to move past this.' So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song.

And I was like, 'OK, good. We're back on good terms.' And then when I heard the song, I was like, 'I'm done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let's be on bad terms, but just be real about it.' And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake's family and their lives. It's the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don't want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don't want to just talk about negative sh*t all day, but it's the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened."

Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

On how her Reputation era actually included some of the best moments of her life: "It's weird, because in some of the worst times of my career, and reputation, dare I say, I had some of the most beautiful times — in my quiet life that I chose to have. And I had some of the most incredible memories with the friends I now knew cared about me, even if everyone hated me. The bad stuff was really significant and damaging. But the good stuff will endure. The good lessons — you realize that you can't just show your life to people."

On coming to terms with her past and moving on: "It was sometime on the Reputation tour, which was the most transformative emotional experience of my career. That tour put me in the healthiest, most balanced place I've ever been. After that tour, bad stuff can happen to me, but it doesn't level me anymore. The stuff that happened a couple of months ago with Scott [Borchetta] would have leveled me three years ago and silenced me. I would have been too afraid to speak up. Something about that tour made me disengage from some part of public perception I used to hang my entire identity on, which I now know is incredibly unhealthy."

On how she felt like Scott Borchetta betrayed her by selling Big Machine Records to Scooter Braun: "A lot of the best things I ever did creatively were things that I had to really fight — and I mean aggressively fight — to have happen. But, you know, I'm not like [Scott Borchetta], making crazy, petty accusations about the past… When you have a business relationship with someone for 15 years, there are going to be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. But I truly, legitimately thought he looked at me as the daughter he never had. And so even though we had a lot of really bad times and creative differences, I was going to hang my hat on the good stuff. I wanted to be friends with him. I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family. To go from feeling like you're being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of 'Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.'"

Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

On her illusions of America in her new songs: "It's about the illusions of what I thought America was before our political landscape took this turn, and that naivete that we used to have about it. And it's also the idea of people who live in America, who just want to live their lives, make a living, have a family, love who they love, and watching those people lose their rights, or watching those people feel not at home in their home. I have that line 'I see the high-fives between the bad guys' because not only are some really racist, horrific undertones now becoming overtones in our political climate, but the people who are representing those concepts and that way of looking at the world are celebrating loudly, and it's horrific."

On reconnecting with Katy Perry: "'Katy [Perry] and I were talking about our signs . . . Of course we were . . . We were talking about our signs because we had this really, really long talk when we were reconnecting and stuff. And I remember in the long talk, she was like, 'If we had one glass of white wine right now, we'd both be crying.' Because we were drinking tea. We've had some really good conversations. We were talking about how we've had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She's like, 'I'm a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.' And I was like, 'Well, I'm an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.' So it's completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, misconception. And oftentimes I've had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. Do you know what I mean? And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, 'Whoa, I didn't know that was how you felt.' Because it takes me a second. If you watch the video of the 2009 VMAs, I literally freeze. I literally stand there. And that is how I handle any discomfort, any pain. I stand there, I freeze. And then five minutes later, I know how I feel. But in the moment, I'm probably overreacting and I should be nice. Then I process it, and in five minutes, if it's gone, it's past, and I'm like, 'I was overreacting, everything's fine. I can get through this. I'm glad I didn't say anything harsh in the moment.' But when it's actually something bad that happened, and I feel really, really hurt or upset about it, I only know after the fact. Because I've tried so hard to squash it: 'This probably isn't what you think.' That's something I had to work on."

On the "Daylight" lyrics, "so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven": "That's something that does bother me, looking back at life and realizing that no matter what, you screw things up. Sometimes there are people that were in your life and they're not anymore — and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't fix it, you can't change it. I told the fans last night that sometimes on my bad days, I feel like my life is a pile of crap accumulated of only the bad headlines or the bad things that have happened, or the mistakes I've made or clichés or rumors or things that people think about me or have thought for the last 15 years. And that was part of the 'Look What You Made Me Do' music video, where I had a pile of literal old selves fighting each other. But, yeah, that line is indicative of my anxiety about how in life you can't get everything right. A lot of times you make the wrong call, make the wrong decision. Say the wrong thing. Hurt people, even if you didn't mean to. You don't really know how to fix all of that."