Kanye West took the stage in Manila, Philippines on Saturday to perform songs from his latest album "The Life of Pablo" for the first time since the album came out in February, and he once again addressed the controversial lyrics in his song "Famous."
In "Famous," West disses Taylor Swift, who he once had beef with after he famously interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, why? I made that bitch famous," he raps on the hit track.
Even though he's addressed the lyric in the past, after performing "Famous" on Saturday night, he spoke about that moment at the VMAs and how it was "the beginning of the end" of his life. He also explained that with this lyric, he "just said what everybody else was thinking."
"This is the song that broke the writer's block for me, because it's something I wanted to say so bad," he continued. "So if I get in trouble for saying the truth, what's being said the rest of the time? And I had to fight every day of my life, with the whole world turned against me, for saying out loud what everyone else felt. But that's the job of an artist, of a true artist: not to be controlled by their finances, not to be controlled by perceptions, but only to be controlled by their truth."
Following the release of "Famous," West took to Twitter to explain the lyric. "I did not diss Taylor Swift and I've never dissed her," he wrote. "First thing is I'm an artist and as an artist I will express how I feel with no censorship...2nd thing I asked my wife for her blessing and she was cool with it...3rd thing I called Taylor and had an hour long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessing."
He then went on to explain that the two had even spoken about it before he released it. "I'm not even gone take credit for the idea...it's actually something Taylor came up with," he added. "She was having dinner with one of our friends who's name I will keep out of this and she told him...I can't be mad at Kanye because he made me famous! #FACTS."
While Swift has not directly spoken out about the song herself, her rep did release a statement that was the complete opposite of what West claimed.
"Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single 'Famous' on her Twitter account," her rep said at the time. "She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, 'I made that bitch famous.'"
