Between the capitalization of the three letters and the lyrics about bullying, fans have theorized that the track is about the pair’s feud.
The release of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department has reignited interest in the feud between the singer and Kim Kardashian.
Swift, 34, surprised her fans on April 19 with the release of a double album just two hours after her 11th studio album, TTPD: The Anthology, dropped, and one track caught fans’ attention in particular — and raised speculation that it could possibly be referring to Kardashian, 43.
On “thanK you aIMee,” Swift sings about facing bullying, and the lyrics, coupled with the capitalization of the three letters in the title (KIM), led fans to think that the song is a dig at the SKIMS founder.
A source tells PEOPLE of Kardashian’s response to the track: “She’s over it and thinks Taylor should move on.”
Kardashian “doesn’t get why [Swift] keeps harping on it,” the source says. “It’s been literally years.”
In the chorus of “thanK you aIMee,” Swift sings, “All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F— you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin’/ But I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”
Later, she changes the chorus to sing: “All that time you were throwin’ punches, it was all for nothin’ / An our town, it look so small from way up here / Screamed ‘Thank you, Aimee’ to the night sky and the stars are stunnin’ / ‘Cause I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”
The song also references Swift removing “any real defining clues” about who the song is about, along with her admitting, “I changed your name,” which fans believed to be a reference to the song exploring her rift with Kardashian.
The feud ignited between the two in 2016 when Kardashian’s ex-husband Kanye West sang about Swift in his song, “Famous,” rapping, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that bitch famous.” West, 46, claimed that Swift had approved of the song, which the singer later denied.
In a statement from a spokesperson at the time, Swift said she was “never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that bitch famous,’ ” and Kardashian, 43, defended her then-husband, as she later described on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Kardashian then released edited footage of the phone call between West and Swift in an effort to prove her side of the story, though West noticeably did not mention the lyric, “I made that bitch famous,” during the call (which later leaked in full).
By 2019, Kardashian claimed that they’d “all moved on” from the feud during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, but in a rare interview, Swift seemingly denied any such reparation of the relationship.
“It would be nice if we could get an apology from people who bully us,” she told Elle, seemingly referencing the illegally recorded phone call and subsequent mention in West’s song. “But maybe all I’ll ever get is the satisfaction of knowing I could survive it, and thrive in spite of it.”
More recently, in her profile for TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year, Swift reflected on the situation, which she said “took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before.”
“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,” she said.
