When Taylor Swift first released the music video for “You Need to Calm Down,” there was of course a lot of conversation about the questionable (and borderline offensive) lyrical message, the conflation of Taylor’s critics to violent homophobes, the idea that Taylor was queerbaiting and trying to bandwagon on a now-popular issue (gay rights) after years of silence. But Taylor was of course happy to deflect all of those conversations and talk about Katy Perry. Katy also appears in the YNTCD video, and the video was the announcement that they had officially ended their beef. Taylor gave an interview at the time about how their beef had ended and how Katy had apologized to her, which in itself bothered me because Katy didn’t start the beef, Taylor did, and Taylor devoted years of her life to developing a Mean Girl clique to hate on Katy. But in addition to Taylor’s “we’re good, SHE apologized” comments, Taylor said this:

“We have been on really good terms for a while. But the first time we saw each other was at this party, and it was just very clear to both of us that everything was different. That we had grown up. That we had grown past allowing ourselves to be pitted against each other. It just was really, really clear that we remembered how much we had in common. Both of us have been in a really good place for a while, but I don’t know if either of us knew if we were gonna talk about it publicly.”

[Via previous Celebitchy story]

“That we had grown up. That we had grown past allowing ourselves to be pitted against each other.” Again, nothing is ever Taylor’s fault. Again, Taylor refuses to take ownership of her large part in STARTING the beef with Katy. The reason Taylor and Katy are friends now is because Katy was the bigger person, because Katy had grown up and Katy was the one who wanted an end to the beef. Which is what Katy said in an interview this week with The Kyle & Jackie Show. Katy told them:

“Well, it kind of was a process… I sent her a literal olive branch and a note apologizing for my part in all of it, when she started her Reputation tour. I just thought she was about to embark on something new and big and needed the support. I realized how much we have in common and maybe there’s only five other people in the world that can have the same type of conversations and understand where we’re coming from and that we should celebrate our commonality and our friendship and to be able to be there for each other,” she explained.

And once Perry came to the conclusion that it was time to become friends again, she approached Swift at a party in hopes that she would be interested in putting their rocky past behind them as well. “I just went up to her and I was like, ‘Hey, you know it’s been a long time and I think we’ve grown up a little bit and I just wanted to say I’m sorry and I’m really here for you and that I love you and I hope that we can be friends in the future.'”

According to Perry, she and Swift have a chance to be examples of kindness and love, and they weren’t able to be good examples of that while they were feuding. “I think that both her and I, we have influence to young people and especially young girls who are in this type of situation day in and day out at school,” she said. “It’s amazing that we’ve had this opportunity to change and I just hope that other people can learn from it too.”

[From MTV]

I hope young girls do look at Katy’s whole vibe right now and see a role model and a good example. Katy’s not perfect at all, and she still says and does problematic sh-t, but Katy has also done a lot of growing up over the years. Katy has done work on herself, in therapy, through reflection, through political work and charity work, and that’s admirable too – that she knows she can change, and she wants to be a better person, and she wants to be an adult who isn’t part of some juvenile pop star beef. But it continues to be clear that Taylor only “forgave” Katy after Katy apologized – for “her part” as Katy said – repeatedly and kissed Taylor’s ass. Taylor has never and will never accept her role in the beef, or demonstrate this kind of growth.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Taylor’s social media.