Our society loves to watch women fight with each other. There are a host of showrunners — many of them women — who have figured this out and profited off our love for eye rolls, fingersnaps, and neck rolls. Bad Girls Club, Basketball Wives, Love and Hip Hop. And during the past few years, the offstage drama of pop stars has started to closely resemble these near-Shakespearean dramas. Pop stars like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Nicki Minaj have delivered viral clapbacks to pop stars like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Nicki Minaj (all three have attacked each other in various combination at some point in history) that are just as seething as, well, anything Tiffany Pollard has ever said. And we eat up every second of it. Katy Perry’s iconic Mean Girls subtweet towards T-Swift has been turned into a mug. As Drake would say: trigger fingers have turned into Twitter fingers.
We are complicit in these pop stars’ bad behavior. Katy Perry knows a revenge song like “Swish Swish” (directed at T-Swift) will sell much more than a “purposeful pop” anthem like “Chained to the Rhythm,” so why wouldn’t she make one? We not only encourage female pop stars to fight with each other, but fund it too.
Perhaps this is why Nicki Minaj used the radio premiere of the first two singles from her upcoming album to talk about the bad blood between her and Cardi B. “The only thing with Cardi that really really hurt my feelings was the first interview she did after “Motorsport” came out,” Nicki told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe last month, tears in her eyes. “She looked so aggravated and angry and the only thing she said was, ‘Oh, I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear that verse.’ I was like what?” Coverage about Nicki’s issues with Cardi far eclipsed any stories about her new songs. It was almost as if Nicki knew she needed something juicy and entertaining to give her new music attention.
These feuds are not just playground spats. Fans of these artists seemingly take these battles as permission to bully other artists in the most offensive of ways, attacking their weight, looks, and careers. Just look at how Beyoncé’s beyhive swarmed Rachel Roy with so many vengeful comments, the fashion designer was forced to make her Instagram private. In fact, Bey’s fans were so eager to attack someone, that many confused Rachel Roy with Rachel Ray and dragged the chef. It felt like a chaotic, merciless free for all.
There is something deeply misogynist in how we receive and react to disagreements between prominent women. First off, we believe showing support for one pop diva means tearing another one down. It reinforces the idea that only one women can own a piece of a pie in a very male-dominated industry, forcing them to compete with each other in unfair ways. Then there is our desire for these beefs to play out on a public stage — treating them as if they are fodder. As Nicki’s tears showed us, the self-esteem and egos of these women seriously get bruised during these rivalries. I’m pretty sure no Jay-Z fan ever used his 90s beef with Nas as an excuse to poke fun at Nas’s appearance.
As with anything that becomes en vogue, female pop spats have become popular to the point that they are no longer popular. Extending an olive branch is the new way to gain fans’ favor — literally. Katy Perry ended her four year long feud with Taylor Swift recently by sending an olive branch and a personal apology letter. “Katy Perry sends a letter and oliver brand to Taylor Swift, and the world rejoices,” one headline read.
Nicki Minaj and Cardi B also talked things out this week. The two were photographed at the Met Gala hugging, genuine smiles on their faces. It felt like a far cry from the rage-filled line about being made out to be a bad guy Nicki delivers in “Chun Li.” Maybe the two will now finally deliver the proper collab we all want — and appear in the same video frame together. Female solidarity is what we love now.
“The media, they just so thirsty to put women in hip-hop — not just women in hip-hop, color women — against each other,” Cardi B told Howard Stern about her reconciliation with Nicki. “I don’t understand why they do that and why they want to do that. Like, I’ve seen so many Hispanic artists — females — work with each other, and it benefits them so well.”
Because that’s the thing, no matter how entertaining it may be to see female pop stars fight together, there is nothing more earthshaking than watching them team up and slay. Look at duets like Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine” or Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mya, and Lil’ Kim’s “Lady Marmalade” or Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s high-energy “Telephone.” These are songs that have truly shifted pop culture.
Maybe this is what female pop stars are finally realizing — they are so much better (and sell more) when they get along.