Explaining the beef between Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian

Published Jul. 18, 2016 9:36 a.m. ET

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If you've been anywhere near social media in the last 12 hours, you've probably seen an avalanche of tweets about Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and Snapchat. What's going on? How did we get here? Here's a full rundown of the Great Celebrity Beef of 2016. Our story begins seven years ago:

2009: Kanye interrupts Taylor Swift at VMAs

Unhappy that Beyonce didn't win the award for Best Female Video (Swift's "You Belong With Me" took the honor), Kanye stormed the stage. He would later apologize for the incident. 

2015: Kanye and Taylor Swift hug at the VMAs, declare themselves to be friends

Swift presented West with the Video Vanguard Award, and after years of awkwardness, the two publicly buried the hatchet. Untill..

February 2016: Kanye West releases Famous

In the song, he says:

February 2016: Taylor Swift reacts, says she wasn't aware of the lyric

February 2016: Kanye claims he had an hour-long conversation with Swift about the song and says she gave her blessing

Februrary 2016: Taylor Swift takes a jab at Kanye during the Grammys

June 2016: Kim Kardashian says in an interview that there was a phone call over the lyric, and that Swift knew it was being recorded

Kardashian claimed in a GQ interview that Swift threatened legal action: "Maybe an attorney's letter she sent saying, 'Don't ever let that footage come out of me saying that. Destroy it."

June 2016: West releases the music video for Famous

The video features Swift and a cavalcade of other celebrities lying nude in a bed with Kanye West.

July 2016: Kim Kardashian tells people to follow her on Snapchat

July 2016: Kim Kardashian posts a video of Kanye's conversation with Taylor Swift about the lyrics of "Famous"

Swift gives her approval and thanks West for asking her, but in the video shared West does not mention the line "I made that [expletive] famous."

July 2016: Twitter melts down

July 2016: Taylor Swift accuses West and Kardashian of "character assassination"

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