Taylor Swift‘s impact on the music industry is undeniable, with multiple awards, nominations, and broken records to her name. She also happens to be the most decorated artist in Billboard Music Awards history, alongside Drake, though Swifties are now rightfully turning against the music publication for taking a not-so-subtle dig at Swift.

In her 18-year career, Swift has secured no less than 12 No. 1 hits on the Hot 100 charts, with another 14 on the Billboard Hot 200 charts. In the week after releasing both 2022’s Midnights and 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, the entire top 10 of the Billboard chart was exclusively made up of Swift songs. In 2019, Billboard named her Woman of the Decade, at the same time as the American Music Awards named her the Artist of the Decade. Taylor’s power and influence is undeniable (both in the U.S. and worldwide), but her connection to Billboard is especially strong.

Unfortunately, as they crowned her the second-greatest Pop Artist of the 21st Century, Billboard tried to undermine Swift’s power with a deliberate dig that has fans fuming.

#BillboardIsOverParty is trending all over social media because of a controversial photo

If this hashtag feels familiar, it is used nowadays to indicate when an artist is “canceled,” but its history is tied closely to Swift. In 2015, the hashtag became popular after Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s doctored phone call tried to portray Swift as a liar. The internet got out their pitchforks (read as keyboards) and started burning all the witches (aka spewing hate online). The chatter around Swift’s alleged lies was maddening, but the internet never apologized when, in 2020, the entire phone call was leaked, and it was proven Swift had never lied and that “Kimye” had never told her the full story.

Flash forward to 2024, Billboard wanted to “celebrate” Swift’s achievements by naming her No. 2 on their list of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st century. This attracted mild criticism from fans who called the games “rigged,” some accusing Jay-Z of paying for the first spot. Although Billboard hasn’t announced the first spot yet, everyone knows who it is: Beyoncé. In fact, the first two spots had been known for weeks, with debate going on all over social media. Unlike her fans, however, Swift wouldn’t have been bothered by Queen Bey taking the first spot because the two women have often supported each other.

So, everyone would have eventually let it slide if it hadn’t been for one major, highly controversial picture. In its celebratory video, Billboard used a caption taken from Kanye West’s “revenge porn” music video for “Famous.” In it, he famously used a naked wax figure of Taylor in bed next to him to downplay the “Anti-Hero” singer’s career, claiming he had made her famous when he interrupted her MTV Video Music Awards speech for Best Video in 2009.

Fans took to X to complain about the inclusion of that screenshot. “Okay, Billboard’s intention was to recap everything that happened in her entire career, I get that. But was it really necessary to include THAT scene? Just nasty, disrespectful and unprofessional,” one user wrote.

Billboard took the video down and issued a generic apology that did nothing to defer the wrath of the internet. “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.”

Fans highlighted how an “error” would mean a typo or pointing out a wrong fact, trivia, or award numbers. Using a photo that took a while to edit into the video was not a mistake but a deliberate dig at Swift’s success.

Swift hasn’t addressed the issue so far. Still, it would make the perfect time for her to announce Reputation (Taylor’s Version), considering that, despite her worldwide, record-breaking, billion-dollar tour, the media is still looking to bring her down.