Last month, Katy Perry finally broke her silence on the long-standing feud between her and Taylor Swift on James Corden‘s “Carpool Karaoke” — but why did she decide to speak out about the feud?
“Well, James Corden makes me and the whole world feel very safe,” she said in an interview with NME published Friday. “No one has asked me about my side of the story, and there are three sides of every story: one, two and the truth.”
She continued, “I said that but, I mean, I’m not Buddha – things irritate me. I wish that I could turn the other cheek every single time, but I’m also not a pushover, you know? Especially when someone tries to assassinate my character with little girls. That’s so messed up!”
On “Carpool Karaoke,” Perry said, “honestly, it’s really like, she started it and it’s time for her to finish it.” She also claimed that she tried to speak with Swift about the elephant in the room but never heard back from the “Shake It Off” singer.
During an interview with Rolling Stone in 2014, Swift explained that her hit “Bad Blood” was about another female artist: “For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’”
Swift then claimed that this artist “did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational — you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”
Max Martin, co-author of Taylor Swift‘s “Bad Blood” which is widely believed to be about Perry, also helped out on Perry’s new album, but there is no bad blood between Perry and Martin.
“I can’t speak for him, but he didn’t know [who ‘Bad Blood’ was about],” said Perry. “I’m not supposed to tell him what he can and can’t do. I’m very fair; I’m super-duper fair and I’m not one of those people who’s like, ‘You can’t do that because I don’t like that person. Just, like, you do you, make your own choices.’ And I love Max. I’ve been working with Max my whole career. I’m not his mother and he was fine before I met him, you know what I’m saying? He’ll be fine continuing.”
A representative for Swift has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.