Taylor Swift Details Her Friendship with Kanye West

During the VMAs in 2009, Kanye West and Taylor Swift had one of the most awkward public encounters in media history, after he took stage to interrupt Swift’s thank you speech for winning the “Best Video” award, voicing that Beyonce should have taken it instead. During this year’s GRAMMY Awards — more than five years after the incident — they seemed to be on good terms. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, T-Swizzle describes her friendship with Kanye West and how JAY Z aided in the change-of-heart process. Read an excerpt below and the full interview here.

I feel like I wasn’t ready to be friends with [West] until I felt like he had some sort of respect for me, and he wasn’t ready to be friends with me until he had some sort of respect for me—so it was the same issue, and we both reached the same place at the same time. I became friends with JAY Z, and I think it was important, for JAY Z, for Kanye and I to get along… And then Kanye and I both reached a place where he would say really nice things about my music and what I’ve accomplished, and I could ask him how his kid’s doing.