If you want to win Katy Perry’s heart: bake her a tray of cookies. Or at least this is what Taylor Swift did yesterday, confirming once and for all that after years of the popstars fighting in the playground - aka in the charts and on social media - there is no longer any Bad Blood between the pair. Fans are delighted that their idols are finally speaking again, but cynics might be right to believe Swift and Perry are only making up so they can dominate the charts with a collab (at a time when they’re both suffering from diminished chart success).
But, how did it go from Taylor proclaiming her love for Perry on the Internet in 2009 - ‘@katyperry knows how to throw a birthday party! I would even go as far as to say it was party-licious. Best EVER. Happy bday, pretty girl!!’ - to the stars both slating each other in interviews?
Well, let us begin the Swift-Perry pop-culture history lesson.
Some believe that the mighty fall-out began when Katy started to date John Mayer in summer 2012, after it was rumoured that Taylor and John were together. (The country singer did write a song called Dear John - what more proof do you need?!)
But the feud wasn't thanks to a man. The real nail in the coffin was thanks to three dancers apparently derailingTaylor’s Red world tour in 2013. When Taylor embarked on the dates, she hired some backing dancers who had previously worked for Katy. All was well and good, until those dancers asked Katy halfway through the tour if they could dance for Perry instead, when she started to tour her fourth album Prism. She said yes - and one of the dancers even telling an Austrailian newspaper that they had got a ‘little bored’ on Swift’s tour. Ouch.
It’s safe to say Swift was less-than-impressed, giving this burn in Rolling Stone in 2014. ‘For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not,’ she told the magazine. ‘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?” She 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.’
And here we have the inspiration for Swift's hit song Bad Blood, which was released in 2014. Heating up the feud, retaliation, Katy sent a tweet saying ‘Beware of the Regina George [from Mean Girls] in sheep’s clothing…’
But even sweeter, two years later, Katy got her revenge, releasing the track Swish Swish with Nicki Minaj - a song which was not-so-subtly aimed at the I Knew You Were Trouble singer. Funnily enough, Swish Swish is the sound a snake makes, so it seems like little coincidence when the song was released after that time when everyone was leaving snake emojis on Taylor’s Instagram.
Have you kept up? Well, thankfully, after that it started to get better. In 2017, Katy seemed to go back on Swish Swish, and apologised to Taylor during a 24-hour YouTube live stream to promote her album Witness. (On that same day she cried on the stairs in pyjamas, and ranked her lovers in order: 1. John Mayer, 2. Orlando Bloom and 3. Diplo.) The verbal apology was the start of the whole healing process, which has been gradually happening since. The strongest hint the fight was over was when Katy sent Taylor an olive branch, a classic ye ol’ symbol of peace. That was in May last year, so it has taken over 12 months for the pair to finally hang out - as eagle-eyed fans have noticed that the photo of the cookies shared to Katy’s account was actually taken in Taylor’s kitchen. It seems like maybe they are cooking up a collaboration.
READ MORE: As A Woman With Short Hair, I Understand Why Katy Perry Is Now Wearing Wigs All The Time