Taylor Swift Billboard ranking: Outlet apologises for including clip of Kanye West’s music video in her musical highlights reel
Billboard has earned the ire of Swifties twice in the span of two days.
The outlet initially ranked Taylor Swift as number two on its list of greatest pop stars of the 21st century, but matters were made worse when fans spotted a detail in their musical highlights reel for the star.
Watch the video above
READ MORE: Tones and I thanks fans for support after sharing miscarriage news
Included among the best moments of her career was a clip of Kanye West’s music video Famous, in which Swift is falsely depicted with a nude wax figure.
The outlet took to their X, formerly Twitter, account to post an apology a few hours after the video went live.
“We are deeply sorry to Taylor Swift and all of our readers and viewers that in a video celebrating Swift’s achievements, we included a clip that falsely depicted her,” the outlet wrote.
For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here.
“We have removed the clip from our video and sincerely regret the harm we caused with this error.”
But this is not enough for fans, who retaliated in the comments.
“It isn’t an error btw, an error could be including a wrong pic or adding a wrong number or those basic things but you guys added a revenge porn to the video talking about her achievements which is unnecessary + you did it with other artists like Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj,” one fan pointed out.
READ MORE: One place Hollywood hero’s daughter is more famous than him
“Your apology is not accepted. This should have never happened in the first place,” another declared.
“Apologise to Rihanna, Nicki, Ariana, Britney and Katy too! Stop downplaying other artists’ success just to justify your rankings!” one commenter said.
“This might be one of the worst apologies in the history of bad apologies,” one said, adding the now trending hashtag #BillboardIsOverParty.
READ MORE: One thing one of music’s biggest names won’t show her fans
The feud between Swift and West started in 2009 when West crashed Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
Though they reconnected for a while, efforts came undone when he name-checked her in the song, claiming he was the reason she was famous.
Swift has been outspoken in the past about her disapproval of her likeness being used in the video and of her being mentioned in the song.
After the condemnation, West’s wife at the time Kim Kardashian posted an edited, recorded phone call between them that presented Swift as approving of the nme-checking.
READ MORE: Prince and Princess of Wales pay tribute to ‘brave’ teenage photographer
Swift later spoke on the incident in her Time 2023 Person of the Year feature.
“You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,’ she said.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.