Kanye West has never performed at the Super Bowl. The coveted half time slot has been filled by everyone from Beyoncé to Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Shakira, Snoop Dogg, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones. In other words, it’s not a bad performance to have on your cv.

West, however, has never received the call up. This is something that irks him to this day and is also something he is trying to blame Taylor Swift for. In the rapper’s latest rant on X, he said, ‘I was never allowed to do the Super Bowl because of three moments. George Bush don’t care about Black people. The Taylor Swift movement moment. Wearing a MAGA hat.’

In the since-deleted post, he added, ‘How it feel to be the best living and blocked from the main stage because of being ahead of my time. (And I mean all of this was before I went full Nazi of course).’

An offhand remark about being a Nazi is indicative of just how vitriolic and unhinged West’s social media presence has been recently. As well as declaring his love of Hitler on X, he has insulted the physical capacity of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s youngest children, called his ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her family ‘sex traffickers’ and attacked his former personal assistant because of a sexual assault lawsuit she filed against him. West denies the accusations.

In this context, it was only a matter of time before West dragged Swift, who he has publicly feuded with in the past, into the storm. It began in 2009 when Swift won Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards and West jumped on stage and grabbed the microphone out of her hand during her acceptance speech. ‘Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you. I’mma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time,’ he said in front of a shocked audience. ‘One of the best videos of all time!’.

Looking back on the moment years later, Swift said, ‘I was standing on stage and I was really excited because I had just won the award, and then I was really excited because Kanye West was on the stage, and then I wasn’t so excited anymore.’

Things escalated between them in 2016 when West released his song ‘Famous’, in which he rapped, ‘I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that b**ch famous.’ Aside from the flagrant misogyny at play, for West to think he made Swift famous when she was the one on stage accepting a prestigious award at the VMAs is a good indicator of his ego.

In 2023, with the benefit of hindsight, Swift admitted that both moments took an immense toll on her mental health. ‘That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before,’ she told TIME magazine when she was announced as Person of the Year. ‘I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.’

While they made amends for a period, Swift’s feud with West and indeed Kardashian remains a well-known part of popular culture. West in particular seems unable to let it go. He even mentioned her name again after Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance in February, writing (in capital letters), ‘If it’s about the culture. Why are we letting Taylor Swift be seen on TV singing a song about taking a black man down and accusing of things that can take a black man down for life?’.

Given that Swift has never performed the half time show, it’s possible that he is referring to the song ‘Innocent’ from her 2010 album, which is rumoured to be about West, and the comments she made in her TIME interview. Once again, however, West is failing to understand that any damage to his reputation is a consequence of his actions. The impact of those actions he continues to underestimate.

Now Swift is reportedly considering legal action against West. According to reports, she has issued a cease and desist letter in response to his third spate of baseless remarks on X, whereby he claims Swift had sexual relations with Harry Styles and Justin Bieber. A source told The Daily Mail, ‘This isn’t just [West] gossiping. This is [West] sexually harassing a woman, defaming her and intending to cause harm to her and her career.’ The formal letter demands that he stop making defamatory claims about her immediately.

There’s being a ‘provocateur’ and then there’s harassment, perhaps West is not aware of the difference. His recent rants have already led to emergency lawyer-mediated meetings with Kardashian, who is reportedly considering filing for sole custody of their four children, and new rumours suggest his second wife Bianca Censori has left him because of his outbursts too.

Last week, West released a song called ‘BIANCA’, and raps, ‘Bianca, I just want you to come back/ Come back to me/ I know what I did to make you mad.’ Later singing, ‘My baby she ran away/ But first she tried to get me committed/ Not going to hospital ‘cause I am not sick I just do not get it’. West added, ‘She’s having a panic attack and she is not liking the way that I tweeted.’

If he carries on like this, West’s X rampages will continue to cost him much more than a Super Bowl performance.