Taylor Swift breaks Kanye West's Billboard album charts record
Swift has given West his Karma on the charts.
Kanye West's 19-year reign of achieving No. 1 album debuts has been thwarted by Taylor Swift this week.
Swift's The Tortured Poets Department scored a 14th week at the top of the Billboard 200 in the US, leaving West’s new album, Vultures 2, a collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign, to settle for second.
The last time West didn’t debut at No. 1 was for his 2004 debut The College Dropout, which debuted at No. 2.
Swift's achievement comes amid a long-running feud between the recording artists, the seeds of which were sown at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards when West got up on stage and interrupted her acceptance speech for the Best Female Video award for You Belong With Me, saying: "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."
West went on to call Swift a "b**ch" in the lyrics of his 2016 song Famous, claiming he had got her permission.
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Swift denied the claim, leading West’s ex Kim Kardashian to release excerpts of a phone call between Swift and West, purporting to show that Swift had in fact been enthusiastic about the song after all.
Kardashian described Swift 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!"
Speaking to Vogue in 2019 about the high-profile scandal, Swift said: "A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote cancelled, is a very isolating experience."
She continued: "When you say someone is cancelled, it's not a TV show. It's a human being. You're sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, 'Kill yourself'."
West, now known as Ye, and Ty, real name Tyrone Griffin Jr, released Vultures 1 back in February, while the second instalment arrived earlier this month – months after its scheduled March release date.
One of the tracks on Vultures 2 references Swift, with guest artist Lil Wayne saying: "I twist my Taylor spl***s tight at the end like Travis Kelce," which appears to be a reference to her new partner Kelce, who is a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.
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