Celebrity Feuds, Through History

Throughout the last hundred years, celebrity feuds have been the cause of many legendary stories. From the 1930s, when Bette and Joan were at each other's throats on the silver screen, to the recent rap war between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, the entertainment world is no stranger to fierce competition and its glorification.

One of the most talked about feuds of all time is that of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. In the 30s, both were big names in Hollywood: Davis was on the rise, and Crawford was a star. But they were quickly seen as foils to each other. Davis was classically trained but struggling to gain popularity, while Crawford was beloved by audiences but not taken seriously as an actress. Over the next three decades, resentment would grow between the two, until it became the stuff of legends.

In 1935, Davis won her first Oscar for Dangerous, during the filming of which she fell in love with her co-star Franchot Tone. When Crawford came along and married him, Davis was beside herself. She later said, “He was madly in love with her. I was madly in love with him.” From the 1940s to 50s, the rivalry was outright, with both actresses making jabs at the other in interviews. Davis said, “She slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.” Crawford publicly said, “If Bette Davis and I were in the same room, I’d get out of there as fast as I could.”

It seems the breaking point would come in 1962, when Davis and Crawford would collaborate on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, in which former child star Jane (Davis) imprisons her wheelchair-bound sister Blanche (Crawford) in their decaying mansion, hiding her from the world while plotting a comeback. Production was hell, with Davis and Crawford attempting to sabotage each other at every step. During filming, Davis accidentally kicked Crawford in the head. She had to get stitches. In scenes where Davis had to drag Crawford across the floor, the latter added weights to her costume to make it as hard as possible.

And even after filming, it continued. On the night of the Oscars, for which Davis was nominated for Best Actress, Crawford personally offered to accept the award on behalf of any winner who couldn’t attend. When Anne Bancroft won for The Miracle Worker, Crawford took the stage, leaving Davis enraged. After the drama of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, the feud between Davis and Crawford seemed to cool down, at least publicly. But in 1977, when Crawford died, Davis still refused to give it up. When asked to comment on Crawford’s death, Davis famously said, “You should never say bad things about the dead, only good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

In 2017, Ryan Murphy would go on to make the first season of the anthology series Feud, about the filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, with Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford. The feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford is enduring, public, and petty.

Around the same time, another famous feud was brewing between actors Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. They disliked each other from the start. Sinatra felt Brando’s method acting and classical background was pretentious, while Brando thought Sinatra was a shallow singer with limited acting abilities.

In 1955, they would be cast in a film adaptation of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. It was tense from the get go. Sinatra wanted Brando’s role, the lead, and thus despised working with him. Brando knew this and would intentionally bother Sinatra on set. He would mess up takes so Sinatra would have to redo scenes, leading Sinatra to nickname Brando “Mumbles.” In response, Brando pretended to forget his lines during a scene, which forced Sinatra to repeatedly eat cake slices.

The catalyst was when Sinatra thought his recently-separated wife might be having an affair with Brando. There are rumors Brando tried to have Sinatra killed by mobsters. Brando would go on to play the lead role of Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972), a role which Sinatra was devastated to lose. The blow worsened by Brando’s Best Actor Oscar win.

Fast forward to the late nineties and Sex and the City, one of the most popular shows of its time, starts airing. On the show, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) were the best of friends. But in real life, not so much. The first inklings of a possible feud came in 2004, when Cattrall admitted that money was part of the reason that the show ended. While not explicitly stated, it could be inferred that SJP’s $300,000 check (from acting and executive producing) was more than what Cattrall was paid, thus causing problems. There were other issues on set. Cattrall felt excluded from the group of SJP, Kristen Davis, and Cynthia Nixon). Even at awards shows, the latter three would sit together, with Cattrall at another table.

After the show ended, they went on to make two films: Sex and the City (2008), and Sex and the City 2 (2010). Both were commercial successes, and the audience was hungry for more. During this time, both Parker and Cattrall would be frequently asked about their feud, and both would deny it, critiquing the attempts to pit women against each other.

However, when the third movie was scrapped for good in September 2017, reports were coming in that Cattrall was to blame. Just a month later in October, Cattrall told Piers Morgan that she and Parker had “never been friends.” And when asked about the rumors that she was to blame for the third movie’s cancellation: "This is really where I take to task the people from Sex and the City, and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker. I think she could've been nicer." SJP later went on Watch What Happens Live, where she told Andy Cohen that she was “heartbroken” about Cattrall’s claim that they’d never been friends. She continued, "I found it very upsetting because that's not the way I recall our experience."

The blowout came in February 2018. When Cattrall’s brother passed away, SJP commented on her Instagram, “Dearest Kim, my love and condolences to you and yours and Godspeed to your beloved brother. Xx." But Cattrall quickly came back at her with a post reading, “I don’t need your love or support at this tragic time @sarahjessicaparker.” The caption continued on this sentiment, “My Mom asked me today ‘When will that @sarahjessicaparker, that hypocrite, leave you alone?’ Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.” She also included a link to a 2017 New York Post article titled ‘Inside the mean-girls culture that destroyed ‘Sex and the City.’

The feud seems to go somewhat silent after this, with much of the audience's focus going to the 2021 revival show, And Just Like That. Parker, Davis, and Nixon all reprised their roles, but Cattrall did not, with Samantha being written off as having moved to London. However, she did make a cameo in the season two finale via a phone call with Carrie. Cattrall was apparently paid a hefty $1 million for the one scene cameo.

In 2009, Taylor Swift’s long and enduring career was just starting. On September 13th, at the Video Music Awards, 19-year-old Swift took the stage to accept the award for Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me”, which went platinum in my childhood bedroom as well as many others.

During her speech, Kanye West stormed the stage, grabbed the mic, and said, “Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!” Swift stood on the stage, shell shocked. Later, she told reporters, “I was standing on stage and I was really excited because I'd just won the award and then I was really excited because Kanye West was on stage. And then I wasn't excited anymore after that.” In the following days, West would go on to address the interruption, and apologize to Swift via phone call. The next year, on September 12, Swift released the song “Innocent” on her album Speak Now, publically forgiving West. She sings, “It's okay/ life is a tough crowd/32 and still growing up now."

Things calm for a couple years, until, in 2013, West comes out of the woodwork and recants his apology, telling the New York Times, “I don't have one regret." Swift and West were still seen interacting pleasantly at awards shows and Swift told Vanity Fair, “I like him as a person. And that's a really good, nice first step, a nice place for us to be.”

Things spiraled in 2016. West debuted the single “Famous" off his upcoming album The Life of Pablo. He sings, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.” It was met with immediate backlash, but West claimed to have Swift’s permission. In her Grammy speech for Album of the Year, Swift hinted at the track, saying, “There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.”

Kim Kardashian, West’s then-wife, told GQ, “She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn't." A spokesperson for Swift replied, “Taylor does not hold anything against Kim Kardashian as she recognizes the pressure Kim must be under and that she is only repeating what she has been told by Kanye West. However, that does not change the fact that much of what Kim is saying is incorrect. Kanye West and Taylor only spoke once on the phone while she was on vacation with her family in January of 2016 and they have never spoken since. Taylor has never denied that conversation took place. It was on that phone call that Kanye West also asked her to release the song on her Twitter account, which she declined to do." It gets worse. West releases a music video for “Famous,” in which he is surrounded by naked sculptures of celebrities, with Swift next to him. She has since equated this to “revenge porn.”

Kardashian would go on to release the recording of the phone call, though unbeknownst at the time, it was highly edited. On the recording, Swift seemed neutral about the song. Her rep responded, "Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyrics, 'I made that bitch famous.'” But the damage was already done, the internet had completely turned on Swift. Swift herself responded in a now deleted Instagram post, saying, “"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.” She goes on to say, "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009."

#Taylorswiftisoverparty trends on Twitter. Swift goes dark. In August, she mysteriously clears her Instagram, then teases a new album with a lot of snake emojis. Many of the songs on the album Reputation, were not-so-subtly about her feud with West, such as “Look What You Made Me Do” and “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”. In the following years, the feud seems to die down. In a September 2019 Rolling Stone cover story, Swift spoke candidly about the situation, saying that, “All I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me.” When “Famous" came out, that was the tipping point for her: “When I heard the song, I was like, 'I'm done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let's be on bad terms, but just be real about it.'"

Nearly four years after that fated-- and edited-- phone call was posted by Kardashian, the real version was leaked. It reveals that, contrary to Kardashian and West’s claims, Swift was not informed of the “I made that bitch famous” line. Both parties make statements about the newly released footage.

From there, it seems to die down, with Swift mentioning the feud once more in her 2023 TIME Person of the Year feature. Swift refers to it as a “career death” and says, “Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me.” She explains, “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls.”

Recently, Taylor Swift went on the record breaking Eras Tour, became a billionaire, and was TIME Magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year. Meanwhile, Kanye West has fallen to a far less favorable status, drowning in controversy at every turn.

After the Swift versus West feud died down, a feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake boiled over. The two seemed to be on fine, albeit a little tense, terms until 2024, when they started going back and forth with songs and accusations.

In October 2023, Drake planted the first seed when he collaborated with J. Cole on the song “First Person Shooter.” In the song, Cole references a sort of ‘big three’: himself, Lamar, and Drake, “Love when they argue the hardest MC/ Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?/ We the big three like we started a league/ but right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali.” On March 22, 2024, Lamar hit back on a song with Future and Metro Boomin, “Like That,” saying, “F**k sneak dissin’, first-person shooter/ I hope they came with three switches … Motherf**k the big three, n***a, it’s just big me.” Lamar then went after Drake’s album For All the Dogs: “For all your dogs gettin’ buried/ That’s a K with all these nines, he gon’ see Pet Sematary.”

In April, Drake came back with a vengeance. First he released a diss track, “Push Ups,” then another, “Taylor Made Freestyle.” In the latter, Drake accused Lamar of pushing back the release of his diss track because of Taylor Swift’s upcoming The Tortured Poets Department album. He also used AI to mimic the voices of Tupac and Snoop Dogg for verses of the song, which led Tupac’s estate to threaten a lawsuit if the song wasn’t removed. Drake obliged, and the track was taken down. Lamar came back with two songs: “Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA.” The songs call out Drake’s fashion sense and use of the n-word. In “6:16 in LA,” Lamar implies that there's a mole at OVO Sound, Drake’s record label: “Have you ever thought that OVO was working for me?/ Fake bully, I hate bullies/ You must be a terrible person/ Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it.”

On May 3, Drake came back with “Family Matters” just 14 hours after Lamar dropped “6:16 in LA.” In it, he implies there is infidelity and violence between Lamar and his fiancee Whitney Alford, a continuing theme from “Push Ups.” But Lamar meets fire with even more fire, releasing “Meet the Grahams,” just 24 minutes later. The first verse is addressed to Adonis, Drake’s son, the second to Drake’s parents, the third to Drake’s alleged daughter, and the fourth to Drake himself. And less than 24 hours after that, Lamar drops the now infamous “Not Like Us,” which continues on a lot of the accusations already made on “Meet the Grahams.” In it, Lamar brings up the rumors regarding Drake’s relationships with minors, saying: “Certified Loverboy?/ Certified pedophiles,” and “Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor.”

Drake released “The Heart Pt. 6” the next day, but it was already too late. “Not Like Us” had already gone viral. It debuted as number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and on July 4, Lamar released a music video. No diss tracks are exchanged, and it seemingly dies down a bit, until, on November 25, Drake filed a motion, saying Universal Music Group (UMG) used bots to inflate streams on “Not Like Us.” UMG quickly denied these allegations. The next day, Drake filed another motion against UMG, this time for defamation, and said that UMG made “pay-to-play” payments via iHeartRadio. In January 2025, Drake dropped “Fighting Irish,” a freestyle about his life during the feud, but he quickly took it down. Then, on the 15th, Drake filed a defamation lawsuit against UMG, continuing to allege that they boosted streams for “Not Like Us.”

But while Drake was fighting the feud in court, Lamar was doing so onstage. On February 2, at the 2025 Grammys, Lamar won five awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, and Best Music Video, all for “Not Like Us.” Just a week later, on February 9, Lamar began his halftime show at the Super Bowl. He began “Not Like Us,” but cut himself off, saying, “I want to perform their favorite song, but you know they love to sue,” in reference to Drake’s ongoing battle against UMG. But, a few minutes later, Lamar performed the song, with the audience loudly screaming along. It was a victory lap for Lamar.

Drake would go on to reference the feud on $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, his collaborative album with PartyNextDoor, but it would fall flat after Lamar’s explosive back to back achievements at the Grammys and the Super Bowl. UMG also retaliated against Drake’s lawsuit, with their lawyers stating, “Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated. Instead of accepting the loss., he has sued his own record label. This feud gave us the iconic “Not Like Us” and the memorable Super Bowl halftime show, which also featured appearances from Serena Williams and SZA.

Public feuds give us art, from the movies we watch to the songs we listen to. The next great feud is probably brewing as we speak, and the internet awaits it patiently.