Mamamia recaps the Katy Perry and Taylor Swift feud that apparently didn't end until today.

If there’s one rule we know to be true when it comes to the complex science of celebrity feuds, it’s that one cannot simply declare a feud to be over, then exactly one year later, declare it over again.

That is not how celebrity feuds work and we find this blatant disregard of the rules frankly offensive.

Look, some of us out there consider knowing the ins-and-outs of rumoured celebrity feuds vital to our very existence as popular culture enthusiasts, and we’ll be damned if the people involved don’t take things seriously.

Watch Katy Perry shade Taylor Swift on American Idol. Post continues after.

When one feud ends, we pull out our celebrity feud notebook, cross out the names of the celebrities involved using our special celebrity feud pen, and breathe a deep sigh of relief knowing we’re one step closer to world peace.

But today, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift broke the golden rule, and we’re outraged.

You see, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift were rumoured to have been feuding for four long, snake emoji-filled years, up until it was finally put to bed with a literal olive branch that Katy sent Taylor on her tour last year.

Exhibit A:

It was lovely and we were very happy for them. It also meant we could stop neglecting other very important celebrity feuds, such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, or Kanye and everyone.

So imagine our surprise when today, Katy Perry went and threw our lives upside down with a seemingly innocent photo of a plate of cookies sent to her by Taylor Swift, declaring "peace at last".

 

View this post on Instagram

 

feels good ???? @taylorswift

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) on Jun 11, 2019 at 4:52pm PDT

“Feels good,” Perry captioned the post, tagging Swift and adding “Let’s Be Friends” in the location and that's not actually a place, Katy.

The cookies look delicious and we would very much like to try one, but that's beside the point.

THIS HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

YOU'VE BEEN CROSSED OFF THE FEUD LIST.

WITH THE SPECIAL PEN.

It's all very confusing for us, and we simply must get to the bottom of it.

Here, we present you with the who, what, why, where and how of the Taylor Swift and Katy Perry feud, to decipher once and for all whether it ever truly ended.

The early days

Once upon a time, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift were actually mates.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

Aeons ago, before the war began, the two were full of praise for each other on Twitter. Taylor even went to Katy's birthday party.

Suss these bad boys from 2009:

@taylorswift13 You're as sweet as pie! Let's write a song together about the subject we know best... for my new record. It'll be brilliant~

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 6, 2009

@Katyperry knows how to throw a birthday party! I would even go as far as to say it was party-licious. Best EVER. Happy bday, pretty girl!!

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 25, 2009

@taylorswift13 lover you. you deserve all de awards in the world! VOTE FOR TAY TAY! p.s. your mothers day video made me cry, ur an angel!

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) May 4, 2009

@katyperry your last tweet made me burst out laughing. Oh my god that was classic.

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 22, 2009

Sigh, it all feels so long ago.

When things started to fall to sh*t

While it's still rather unclear what exactly kick-started ~the feud~, looking at the timeline, it may have had something to do with John Mayer (eurgh).

Though unconfirmed, John and Tay dated briefly some time before 2010, and he became the inspiration for her song 'Dear John', which famously asked the question: "Don’t you think 19’s too young / To be played by your dark, twisted games?"

Yikes.

John wasn't stoked about being the subject of a break-up ballad, telling Rolling Stone: "I never did anything to deserve that. It was a really lousy thing for her to do."

Fast forward a couple of years to 2012, when Katy divorced from Russell Brand, SHE struck up a relationship with John, Tay's ex.

It's thought the pair broke up the following March, but despite Tay continually clarifying their feud "has nothing to do with boys" the whole sharing-an-ex seemed to put an end to their friendly Twitter banter.

Interesting.

When it actually fell to sh*t

The year is 2013. Both Perry and Swift had seemingly maintained their friendship (though not as publicly post-Mayer) as their careers sky rocketed.

Both were preparing for their next enormous world tours, when suddenly, dancers went rogue.

And it may or may not have been planned. By who? We're not so sure...

Let us explain:

Tay had invited three of the dancers who toured with Katy on her 2011-12 California Dreams tour to join her Red Tour. They accepted, because fun.

BUT while touring with Swift, one dancer, Lockhart Brownlie, claims that he was approached to join Katy Perry's Prism tour, along with fellow dancers Scott Myrick and Leah Adler. It meant they had to abandon Taylor's tour halfway through and, well, they did.

Did Katy plan this knowing it would screw Tay over? Or did Tay choose Katy's dancers on purpose in the first place?

Look, we dunno how it works, but Lockhart attempted to explain bailing on Tay to The Examiner: “Obviously we were with Katy for two- and-a-half years, she's like family to us. So we were, like, ‘Absolutely’. We weren't really dancing in Taylor's tour anyway, so I had got a little bored and I really wanted to do a promo tour.”

His, Scott and Leah's move led to Tay unfollowing them on Twitter (ouch), and the feud was born with its very own anthem.

Enter Bad Blood.

When Rolling Stone asked for the story behind the spicy (it's a banger TBH) fourth single from her album 1989, Taylor said:

"For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’

"She did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we're just straight-up enemies’. And it wasn't even about a guy! It had to do with business.

"She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I'm surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It's awkward, and I don't like it.

"I know people will make it this big girl-fight thing. But I just want people to know it's not about a guy."

While she never specifically named Katy Perry, it was pretty clear who she was talking about.

The key players

As the feud continued, a series of cryptic tweets seemingly referring to one another were exchanged, notably:

Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing...

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) September 9, 2014

But in the midst of it all, Nikki Minaj and Calvin Harris decided to join in, piling on Tay while Katy Perry watched on with glee.

When Tay's video for Bad Blood, starring her "girl gang" of models and celebs, won MTV VMA Video of the Year in 2015 over Nikki Minaj's Anaconda, the rapper was not happy, Jan.

If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year ????????????????????????????????????????????????????

— QUEEN (@NICKIMINAJ) July 21, 2015

Although she hadn't mentioned Tay in her tweets, Tay responded in a now-deleted tweet: “I've done nothing but love & support you. It's unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot...” she said.

She also offered Nikki a spot on stage with her: “If I win, please come up with me!! You're invited to any stage I'm ever on.”

Yeah, it didn't go down well.

Katy took it as a chance to point out the fact that she is in fact the subject of the "take down" song in question:

Finding it ironic to parade the pit women against other women argument about as one unmeasurably capitalizes on the take down of a woman...

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 22, 2015

Phew.

But that's not all.

Later that year, Calvin Harris went on a Twitter rampage against his ex-girlfriend because, EURGH, MEN, which Katy was dragged into.

Can he just... not?

He wrote: “I know you're off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I'm not that guy, sorry. I won't allow it.”

Katy responded with an ambiguous gif. Classy.

(This is also around the time the whole Kim Kardashian and Kanye West/Taylor Swift side feud emerged but we won't get into that now. Bottom line: it was a bit of a rough time for Tay Tay).

The "sorrys"

In 2017, after approximately four years of feuding, Katy started to change her tune towards Tay. It was the beginning of the end. The treaties were being prepared, the white flag beginning to be hoisted up the pole.

It started with Katy Perry telling Today: “I love her, I always have. We've had our differences but I just continue to say, ‘God bless her on her journey’.”

The very next year, the aforementioned olive branch was delivered to Tay's dressing room, and now, almost exactly one year later, the goddamn cookies popped up on our feed from Tay to Katy.

So, with that comprehensive report akin to a year 11 history paper (jks,I never put that much effort in at school), we are left with the following explanations and surrounding questions:

The feud did end, but started again for some mysterious reason

After ~the feud~ seemingly ended last year, it started up again somewhere between the olive branch and the cookies.

If this is indeed true, we will not rest until we know why it a) reignited, and b) ended again.

Tea please. Come on, give it up.

The feud is over, but Katy Perry just wanted some attention

When Katy Perry dressed as both a chandelier and a giant hamburger at the Met Gala this year and made it her mission to be seen lurking in the background of precisely every single photograph, people looked at her, shrugged, then continued to go about their business.

Look, we get it. Attention is great. Sometimes we cry loudly in our rooms just so our housemates will message us to see if we're OK, and that's fine.

But if that doesn't work, we have to think of new and creative ways to get said attention. Maybe it's wetting our eyes so our mascara runs, then wandering into the lounge room sniffling loudly before saying "oh, I didn't realise you were home" for the inevitable "What's wrong???" (Success!)

For Katy, it was reminding us all again that she did in fact have a feud with Taylor Swift, and if we thought it was going to disappear from our lives forever we were wrong and PLEASE CAN SOMEBODY TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN AND DID YOU NOT SEE THAT I DRESSED UP AS A HAMBURGER?!

It's the start of a new collaboration

Katy and Taylor have teamed up in a new creative direction. No, not a musical collab (pls).

A photo series.

A sort of nuanced social commentary on the intricacies of female friendships in Hollywood.

Each year, they'll be posting a photo to symbolise the historic day the feud ended.

The first, an olive branch, the second, a plate of cookies, and the third, we can only guess, will have something to do with wine because we feel like this has a sort of religious undertone now?

We dunno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The feud is not over, and the cookies are laced with poison

...We did think that red icing looked suspiciously like the blood of an ex back-up dancer.

Just sayin'