Is Taylor Swift Shading Kim Kardashian by Dropping New Album on Her Birthday? Inside Their Feud

They’ve still got bad blood? Taylor Swift revealed she’s releasing a new album during her acceptance speech at the 2022 MTV VMAs after she won the Video of the Year award, and fans are sure the release date is throwing the ultimate shade at Kim Kardashian.

After giving praise to the female directors who made up the nominees for Director of the Year, Taylor, 32, gave fans a shocking, yet pleasant surprise. “I had sort of made up my mind that, if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21. And I will tell you more at midnight…” she said while accepting the honor onstage on Sunday, August 28.

Keeping to her word, Taylor tweeted more information about her upcoming album, titled Midnights with cover art and track list. “Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight,” the tweet read. 

What does this have to do with Kim? Well, October 21 just so happens to be the Kardashians star’s birthday. Taylor also announced the news 13 years after Kim’s ex-husband, Kanye West, disrupted her 2009 VMA acceptance speech for Best Female Music Video, when he grabbed the microphone from her hands and said, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, Ima let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!”

While also noting that the number 13 happens to be her lucky number, fans pieced the not-so coincidences together swiftly after the big news and expressed their thoughts on Twitter. “Taylor Swift announcing a new album on the 13th anniversary of the Kanye West VMA s–t show, 5 years after the premiere of LWYMMD at the VMAs, which will drop on Kim Kardashian’s birthday is ICON behavior,” one tweet read. 

Following the Kanye, 45, drama, Taylor and Kim, 41, had a feud of their own after the SKIMS founder leaked a phone call with the “Red” singer in 2016 on Snapchat. In the audio, the “All Too Well” artist seemingly gave Kanye permission to use the lyrics, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” in his 2016 single “Famous.” However, something got mistranslated during communication.

“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened,” Taylor wrote in an online post after the audio leaked. “I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did.”