As Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris’ feud hits boiling point we take a look at both teams’ extraordinary claims
THEY were the King and Queen of Pop but Calvin Harris this week waged war on ex Taylor Swift in a savage Twitter outburst.
As relations hit toxic levels following the revelation Taylor co-wrote one of his hits, NICOLA FAHEY explores the claims and counter-claims from both camps.
Team Taylor
TAYLOR Swift has faced the worst week of her professional career – and all at the hands of her former lover Calvin Harris.
The DJ sent Twitter into meltdown on Wednesday when he launched a tirade against his ex after her rep confirmed she had a hand in writing his new single under Swedish pseudonym Nils Sjoberg.
In a string of escalating tweets, he questioned her decision to go public with the information, having previously agreed to keep their collaboration under wraps.
The backlash against once-untouchable pop princess Taylor and her new love, actor Tom Hiddleston has been brutal.
Fans of Katy Perry — who has a long-running feud with Taylor — have joined Team Calvin to troll the 26-year-old singer on Twitter.
They’ve even created the trending hashtag #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty to revel in her downfall.
Now music insiders have hit out at Calvin, claiming he is trying to destroy her career like he did with ex-girlfriend Rita Ora when he banned her from singing any of the songs they had worked on together during their relationship.
The secret came out and her rep confirmed it and that p***ed him off
They insist he has gone for the “professional jugular” after being “emasculated” by the fact it was his ex who wrote his smash hit This Is What You Came For.
An insider said: “It was a secret that she wrote the song. The secret came out and her rep confirmed it and that p***ed him off.
“He went for the professional jugular with Rita Ora and it seems he’s doing the same again.”
And in reference to when Calvin stayed at home while Taylor received a Grammy in February, the insider added: “There isn’t a better award you can get than a Grammy Album of the Year.
“It’s the ultimate accolade you can receive as a musician.
“If you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t want to stand by your woman on an important night like that then you’ll also be the kind of guy that gets a bit p***ed off when your woman’s getting toasted for the biggest track of your career for the past five years.”
The fall-out between Taylor and Calvin comes after similar issues led to the end of his romance with Rita Ora.
The pair collaborated on hit track I Will Never Let You Down, released in March 2014, just three months before their romance came to an end.
He went for the professional jugular with Rita Ora and it seems he’s doing the same again
It prompted a public battle between the former flames when he banned Rita from performing the song at the Teen Choice Awards in LA.
Rita later admitted their relationship went “weird” after the song came out.
She revealed: “I thought he had my back and that he’d never steer me wrong.
“But then I Will Never Let You Down came out and everything started to go a bit weird.”
The music insider added: “The way he handled the split up with Rita and was angry about that was going for the professional jugular, and it seems he’s doing the same again.
“You don’t kill someone’s career. That’s one step too far. That killed her album, not letting her release any of the stuff they produced for it.
“It takes two years to put an album together, and then to be left with no tracks? Everyone’s saying, ‘Where’s the music from Rita?’ It’s not good.”
Despite the emotional battle over This Is What You Came For, the song has already raked in huge earnings for Taylor, the world’s highest-paid celebrity with £130million last year.
Calvin and Taylor each have a 50 per cent share of the hit. And it has already generated about £386,763 — based on sales of nearly 743,000, streaming plays of 108million and 129,000 radio spins.
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Team Calvin
WE can reveal a sensational development in the split story today. Sources close to Calvin believe Taylor was moving on to new fella Tom Hiddleston while the DJ was rushed for treatment following his car smash.
On May 20, the DJ was rushed to a medical centre in LA to receive treatment for injuries he sustained in the horror crash near Los Angeles airport.
But they claim that while the singer flew from her home in Nashville to visit Calvin the next day, Taylor spent just "one day" by his side, although he was poorly for a while.
A source said: “Taylor’s true colours are coming out. The truth is she met Tom in May and things are moving very quickly. She had vacated her relationship with Calvin way before she let on.”
However, friends of Taylor fiercely refute the “unfounded” claims, insisting there was “no romance whatsoever” between the pop star and Tom, who met at May's MET Gala in New York.
But Calvin and Taylor’s 15-month relationship was doomed and they announced their split just 12 days after his crash.
There was bound to be bad feeling after Taylor went public with her lightning-speed romance with The Night Manager star Tom.
On Thursday, the 35-year-old actor denied the reports that his romance with Taylor was a “publicity stunt”, telling American reporters: “The truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together and we’re very happy.”
Tensions were rife between them as far back as February
We published the first photos of the pair kissing at the beach outside her Rhode Island home — just two weeks after her split from the DJ.
Soon after, we revealed Calvin was exchanging flirty messages with Ex On The Beach star Megan Rees after following her and six other glamorous women on Twitter, above. But a month after previously maintaining their split was amicable, Calvin exposed the bitter state of their break-up on Wednesday.
Biting back at Taylor, he told her to focus on her new relationship and to stop trying to “bury” him like she did Katy Perry.
While Taylor’s camp have claimed career sabotage, friends of Calvin have rubbished the allegations.
A source said: “Calvin only tweeted to defend himself. He has been nothing but lovely to Taylor, even publicly wishing her well, despite her fast romance with Tom.
Dispute over song credited as reason for couple's break-up
“He was angry because Taylor had made it sound like he had been trying to hide her input on the song — when it was her who insisted they kept her writing secret all along.”
The dispute over the song has been credited as the reason the couple broke up. But tensions were rife as far back as February when Calvin refused to sacrifice a night in the studio to accompany Taylor on the biggest night of her life at The Grammys.
A music insider told The Sun: “Taylor was furious and hated the way he never wanted to attend award shows and big music industry events with her.
“It was a Sunday night in LA and she felt he could have slipped away for a couple of hours to be with her.”
On Thursday Calvin took to Twitter again and proved relations were still sour after an article condemned his treatment of Taylor.
The online Cosmopolitan piece accused him of being petty and branded him a “f***boy”.
Hitting back, Calvin wrote in a tweet now deleted: “Nah whoever wrote this please be embarrassed as hell; embarrassing clickbait article.”
He then liked a series of supportive tweets that had been posted by his sympathisers. One said: “@Cosmopolitan sit down. No one reads your lame magazine.”
Another read: “@Cosmopolitan not cool Cosmo. Trash.”
How the split turned ugly
JUNE 1: Couple confirm split
JUNE 2: Calvin opens up about his relationship on Twitter, saying: “The only truth here is that a relationship came to an end & what remains is a huge amount of love and respect.”
JUNE 15: Taylor and Tom Hiddleston go public with their new romance
JUNE 24: Calvin writes – and deletes – a string of Instagram posts saying that he was not “jealous” or “sad at all” about the split. He adds that he is “free” and accuses Swift of controlling the media.
JULY 12: A spokesperson for Taylor says that she wrote Calvin’s hit This Is What You Came For under pseudonym Nils Sjoberg.
JULY 13: Calvin slams her actions as “hurtful” in a string of posts on Twitter, saying:“I figure if you’re happy in your new relationship you should focus on that instead of trying to tear down your ex.”