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Billboard Apologizes to Taylor Swift, Pulls Kanye West Clip From Video

Billboard apologized to Taylor Swift and pulled a Kanye West clip originally included in a video meant to honor the singer/songwriter.


Heading into Thanksgiving, Billboard rolled out who was ranked second on its "The Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century" list, with singer and songwriter Taylor Swift taking the spot – a ranking that more than few Swifties took issue with. But that wasn't close to the bigger issue that blew up for the music industry media outlet – with the video posted by Billboard to "honor" swift drawing a ton of pushback and questions as to how it could've happened. On Wednesday, Billboard shared a video on Instagram meant to celebrate Swift's career and her artistic contributions to music – except someone thought it would be a good idea to include a clip from Kanye West's 2016 music video for "Famous." Referred to as "revenge porn" by Swift in a social media post back in 2019, the video includes a nude wax figure of Swift (along with others, like Rihanna, Chris Brown, Kim Kardashian, and Donald Trump) – with a clip from it used by Billboard address Swift's feud with West and the rapper's then-wife, Kim Kardashian.

Taylor Swift
Image: Billboard Screencaps

To say that fans weren't having it would be an understatement, demanding that the video be taken down and for someone to explain how the clip could've made it past the editing stage without someone from Billboard raising a red flag (with #BillboardIsOverParty trending Wednesday night and into Thursday). Now, the music industry media outlet has posted an apology and confirmed that the controversial clip had been pulled from Swift's 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 statement from Billboard read. "We have removed the clip from our video and sincerely regret the harm we caused with this error."


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Ray FlookAbout Ray Flook

Serving as Television Editor since 2018, Ray began five years earlier as a contributing writer/photographer before being brought onto the core BC team in 2017.
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