Billboard has been rolling out its ranking of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century, naming Taylor Swift in the No. 2 spot on Tuesday.
In the video created to celebrate the 34-year-old’s achievements, Billboard made the baffling decision to include a clip from Kanye West’s music video for the song “Famous” where he included a wax figurine of a naked Swift and the line “I made that [expletive] famous.”
The music magazine faced massive backlash online for the unforced and head-scratching error as the duo have a fraught history, dating back to 2009 when West interrupted Swift on stage at the MTV Music Awards.
Understandably, fans of the singer were furious. Billboard eventually deleted the video and re-posted it without the clip on Wednesday, but it took until 1am ET — over a day later — on Thursday morning to issue an apology to the The Tortured Poets Department singer.
“We are deeply sorry to Taylor Swift and all of our readers and viewers that in a video celebrating Swift’s achievements, we included a clip that falsely depicted her,” Billboard said on social media. “We have removed the clip from our video and sincerely regret the harm we caused with this error.”
We are deeply sorry to Taylor Swift and all of our readers and viewers that in a video celebrating Swift’s achievements, we included a clip that falsely depicted her. We have removed the clip from our video and sincerely regret the harm we caused with this error.
— billboard (@billboard) November 28, 2024
With #BillboardIsOver trending on X (formerly Twitter) over the last two days, it’s unclear how well the apology will go over.
