Billboard is issuing an apology to Taylor Swift after using footage of her naked waxwork from Kanye West’s music video.
“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 shared via Instagram on Thursday, November 28. “We have removed the clip from our video and sincerely regret the harm we caused with this error.”
The clip from West’s 2016 song “Famous” is regarded as “revenge porn” by some fans since it was part of the long feud between the two stars. Billboard included the nude figure in a montage of Swift’s musical highlights as they awarded her her title of second greatest pop star of the 21st century.earlier this week.
When “Famous” was first released, Swift issued a lengthy statement denying that she’d been aware of the specific content of the song after West’s then-wife Kim Kardashian leaked an edited recording of a phone call between Swift and West in which she supposedly approved its release.
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“Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part in the song is character assassination,” she wrote via Twitter at the time. “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.”
While Swift didn’t directly react to her image being used for the “Famous” video, she “liked” a series of social media posts denouncing it at the time of its release. Meanwhile, Swift’s close friend Lena Dunham branded the video “sickening” and “disturbing” in a Facebook post and accused the rapper of objectifying women’s bodies.
In Billboard’s announcement about Swift nabbing the No.2 spot in their countdown, they honored “all the traits that made her different”: “Her sharp pen, her relatable girl-next-door awkwardness, her hopeless romanticism – and rejecting culture’s previous expectations for female artists to be overtly sexy, pliable and cool, she was able to forcefully, gravitationally bend culture to her will and become one of the world’s biggest undisputed pop stars, despite her eight-year late start in country music,” they wrote.
“She is the only person to ever win album of the year at the Grammys four times. She has the second-most Billboard Hot 100 entries of all time (only Drake has more) and ties with Jay-Z for second-most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 (bested only by The Beatles),” they continued. “She is one of the most impressive touring artists of the past quarter-century, a status that has culminated with her global Eras Tour becoming the highest-grossing trek of all time in 2023, just halfway through its run, as it repeatedly set stadium attendance records and boosted local economies in its confetti-and-friendship-bracelet-strewn wake. She’s a billionaire, the only female artist to become one predominantly through music alone. She is the most famous woman in the world.”
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Billboard also anticipated receiving pushback from fans of Swift for not granting her the No. 1 spot, which will be officially announced on Tuesday, December 3.
“For all these reasons and so many more, she is Billboard’s No. 2 Greatest Pop Star of the 21st century, blowing past countless other accomplished hitmakers and icons,” they wrote. “The fact that controversy will likely tear through the internet over her being just one small space below No. 1 is just another testament to her power, but regardless, her placement shouldn’t leave Swifties upset for too long — especially considering how much later in the millennium she got her start, both in the genre and music in general.”
