Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift reburied the hatchet at last night’s VMAs
Summer 2015 was chock full of blockbuster movies, binge-worthy series, and plenty of online squabbles (if that’s your thing). The last three months yielded enough beef to satisfy the most iron-deficient among us: Everyone had a problem with Iggy Azalea, Australia wanted to ban Azealia Banks, and even Drake found the time to write diss tracks about Nicki Minaj’s boyfriend.
Minaj herself was dragged into a Twitter altercation last month by a not-so-gobsmacked Taylor Swift. It all started when Minaj expressed her frustration over the lack of representation of black artists among MTV’s Video Music Awards nominees. She found it strange that her video for “Anaconda” wasn’t up for Video Of The Year, despite its undeniable popularity and all the ass-dropping it inspired. Minaj’s tweets called out MTV and the music industry in general for rewarding only certain types of artists (and bodies):
“When the ‘other’ girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination. If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.”
Swift—who probably has her notifications on for all tweets including the words “celebrates” and “women”—assumed these comments were about her because she was nominated for the top video award for a video in which she joins forces with slender supermodels and actresses. She admonished Minaj for “pitting women against each other,” despite all the supposed love and support she’d shown her from afar.
Minaj quickly responded, somewhat dumbfounded: