Kanye West believes Taylor Swift is the reason he has never been invited to headline the Super Bowl halftime show.
In a since-deleted X post, captured by WorldStarHipHop, the 47-year-old rapper claimed his years-long feud with the pop star, 35, has prevented him from securing one of the most highly sought-after gigs for a performer.
‘I never was allowed to do the Super Bowl because of three moments. George Bush don’t care about Black people. The Taylor Swift movement moment. Wearing a MAGA hat,’ he claimed.
He went on to say he got ‘blocked from the main stage’ for being ahead of his time, even before he ‘went full Nazi.’
Previous musicians who have performed at the Super Bowl include Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Prince, The Weeknd and Michael Jackson.
Since Roc Nation took on a live music partnership with the NFL in 2019, Jay-Z has been the primary decision-maker for the Super Bowl halftime show.
Kanye West is blaming Taylor Swift for the reason he has never been invited to headline the Super Bowl halftime show
Jay-Z and Kanye West had a fallout in 2016 and have endured multiple beefs throughout recent years.
Last month, however, West may have irrevocably damaged any chance of mending their friendship after making derogatory comments about his twins.
In a since-deleted post, West used highly offensive language to question the mental capacities of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s seven-year-olds.
Meanwhile, Swift, who has never performed the Super Bowl halftime show, reportedly has ‘Jay-Z’s full blessing’ to perform it.
She and Jay-Z have maintained friendly relationship over the years and were most recently seen toasting after his wife, Beyoncé, won Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammy Awards.
Earlier this year, a source told DailyMail.com: ‘Taylor is and always will be considered. And if she wants to do it, she will get the gig.’
The insider, however, revealed the 14-time Grammy winner will wait until her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, retires from football to agree to the performance.
In February, she attended the Super Bowl for the second year in a row to support Kelce, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs.
In a since-deleted X post, the 47-year-old rapper claimed his years-long feud with the pop star, 35, has prevented him from securing one of the most highly sought-after gigs for a performer; seen in 2009
West’s latest claim about Swift comes after nearly 15 years of enmity between the recording artists, as the seeds of the feud between were planted at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, 2009 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
In the infamous exchange, West infamously interrupted Taylor during her victory speech for the Best Female Video award for You Belong With Me, which had been nominated against Beyonce’s Single Ladies.
Kanye emerged on the stage and took the microphone from Taylor, telling her, ‘Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all-time! One of the best videos of all-time.’
While the musical stars appeared to be on better terms in the years following – they were pictured at a number of events in the years after – things blew up after the release of Kanye’s 2016 song Famous.
Kanye claimed at the time that Taylor had given him her blessing to refer to her as a ‘B****’ in the lyrics of the song, in a reference to the VMAs incident.
Taylor said she never made such an agreement, leading to a public feud with Kanye after he and his former wife Kim Kardashian in July of 2016 released a call Kanye and Taylor had over the contents of the Famous song.
Meanwhile, Swift, who has never performed the Super Bowl halftime show, reportedly has ‘Jay-Z’s full blessing’ to perform it (seen in 2025)
Kim alluded to Taylor as a snake upon the release of the call, saying in a tweet, ‘Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!?They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days!’
Later a leaked video appeared to have proven Taylor told the truth about her phone call with Kanye over his controversial song.
The new clip that surfaced on social media appears to show Kanye didn’t consult Taylor about the ‘b****’ lyric, and only asked her about the other line in the song, which was previously mentioned by Kim.
While defending themselves in the past Kim and Kanye did not mention the ‘b***’ lyric, apparently because they knew the phone conversation with Taylor did not touch upon it.
In the footage which was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, Kanye can be seen informing Taylor he is writing a song about her and asked her if she could add hype to the song by tweeting it out.
Kanye tells her: ‘It has a very controversial line at the beginning of the song about you.’
Kanye then told Taylor she ‘sounded sad’, and the singer questioned if the lyrics were ‘mean’, to which he reassured her he didn’t think they were.
Explaining the context to the lyrics he explains: ‘It says, uh… and the funny thing, when I first played it and my wife heard it, she was like, “Huh? What, that’s too crazy,”
‘And then when Ninja from Die Atwoord hear it, he was like “Oh my god, this is the craziest s**t, this is why I love Kanye…” and now, it’s like my wife’s favourite f***ing line… I just wanted to give you some premise of that.’
He then says the lyric: ‘To all my Southside n***as that know me best / I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.’
Taylor laughs and says: ‘That’s not mean.’
‘I never was allowed to do the Super Bowl because of three moments. George Bush don’t care about Black people. The Taylor Swift movement moment. Wearing a MAGA hat,’ he claimed (seen in 2015)
‘OK, well this is the thing why I’m calling you, because you got an army, you own a country of motherf***ing 2bn people, basically,’ Kanye says.
‘If you felt that it’s funny and cool and hip hop, and felt like it’s the College Dropout and Ye that you love, people would be way into it, and that’s why I think it’s super genius to have you be the one that says, ‘Oh I like this song a lot… this is cool.’
Taylor then tells Kanye she needs some time to think about it, adding: ‘When you hear something for the first time you need to think about it, because it is absolutely crazy.’
There is no mention Kanye would call her a ‘b***h’ or suggest he ‘made her famous’ during the phone call.
In a separate clip which is circulating on Twitter which appears to be from the same call, Taylor tells Kanye: ‘I [sold] a full 7m of that album before you did that, which is what happened.’
Taylor in 2019 spoke to Vogue about how she dealt with the high-profile scandal, saying she channeled her energies into her material.
‘A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience,’ she said of the difficult time.
‘You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, “Kill yourself.”‘
As she navigated the scandal, which inspired the tracks This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and Look What You Made Me Do, Swift explained she ‘immediately’ knew she had to ‘make music.’
‘I knew it was the only way I could survive it,’ Swift told the outlet. ‘It was the only way I could preserve my mental health and also tell the story of what it’s like to go through something so humiliating.’
