14 DAY TRIAL // In showbiz, a bit of rivalry just doesn’t cut it: in this dog-eat-dog world, animosity is the currency of trade and social media (or the media in general) is the best place to air all the dirty laundry. Celebrity feuds are a dime a dozen these days but that doesn’t mean that they’ve lost their appeal to gossip lovers; in this sense, 2014 has been a good year.
Whether they fight because they feel there’s not enough room for two or more artists of the same genre or because they have personal scores to settle, celebrities tend to fight a lot. We assume they did the same years ago, but the difference is that, today, nothing stays private anymore, especially not when they take to Twitter to rant.
So, before we say goodbye to 2014, here are some of the best and most scandalous celebrity feuds to get our attention these past 12 months.
Diddy vs. Drake
Drake has the reputation of being a rapper unlike many others on the scene, because he’s in touch with his emotions and he’s not afraid to admit to it. One thing that Drake will not do though is ‘fess up to getting his you-know-what whooped by former good friend Diddy.
It happened earlier this month, when the two got into a verbal spat at a club and Diddy asked Drake to step outside, so they could solve this like men. Drake ended up getting punched several times in the face and collapsing on the ground, when he reportedly dislocated his shoulder.
Rumor has it the two either fought over a track that Diddy showed Drake and Drake used as his own afterwards, or because Drake had said something offensive about Diddy’s girl. If it was the latter, he should have known better.
Demi Lovato vs. Lady Gaga
Demi Lovato spent many months in rehab for emotional issues, eating disorders, and alcohol / substance abuse. Since then, she’s become like this poster girl for a healthy body image, anti-bullying, and realistic expectations as opposed to just buying the images of beauty sold by the media.
So when Lady Gaga included a performer in her shows that puked paint all over her body (seriously), Demi took issue with what she saw as the glorification of eating disorders and she was quick to reprimand her on social media. Gaga didn’t engage, but the performer in question, Millie Brown, told Demi that her puking stunt had nothing to do with eating disorders and everything to do with using her body to express herself artistically.
Bette Midler vs. Ariana Grande
Here are two names you probably never thought you’d see in the same sentence! Talking about the sexualization of today’s pop stars and how all of them are required to bare as much flesh as possible in order to sell music, Bette expressed regret that someone as talented as Ariana would also agree to be subject to this kind of objectification.
She probably never counted on a response from Ariana, but it came quickly: the pint-sized diva, who has already proved she can stand her own ground if challenged publicly, tweeted a photo of one of Bette’s early outfits, which was as skimpy (by that day’s standards) as the ones she, Ariana, wore on stage and in her music videos. Bette agreed that her attempt to shame Ariana was the pot calling the kettle black and dropped it.
Azealia Banks vs. Iggy Azalea
These two hate each other with a passion and until Iggy admits to cultural appropriation (which is what Azealia wants from her), peace is not even a remote possibility. As Azealia sees it, Iggy is nothing but a fraud, a white girl from a middle-class family from Australia, who mimics and rips off black culture to make a profit.
In other words, Iggy is a poser of the worst kind, and because of that, she is guilty of cultural appropriation.
On the other hand, Iggy believes that Azealia is just mad-jealous at her success, which makes her turn her inability to sell her own music into a racial thing. There’s plenty of space on the rap scene for the both of them, Iggy told her in their most recent Twitter spat. As expected, that did little to calm Azealia down.
Eminem vs. Iggy Azalea
Azealia isn’t the only rapper Iggy got into spats with this year, as it so happens: she also had words with Detroit rapper Eminem. The term “feud” might be a bit too much in this context, since what happened was that Iggy reacted to a lyric in one of Em’s songs, in which he rapped about raping her.
Iggy voiced her displeasure and disappointment on Twitter, saying she never imagined she’d live to see the day her younger brother came to her to tell her that he’d just heard his idol (Em) brag about wanting to rape his sister. Eminem didn’t say a word about the whole thing, so it blew over in a very short while.
Snoop Dogg vs. Iggy Azalea
Not the same can be said about this other feud Iggy got mixed up in, with rapper Snoop Dogg. It started when Snoop retweeted a meme comparing a makeup-free Iggy to one of the characters in the comedy “White Chicks,” and Iggy responded angrily immediately.
Snoop is never the one to back down from a good fight, so he continued hurling insults at Iggy both on social media and in his brief chats with the paparazzi, saying stuff like she wasn’t good enough to polish his shoes and that she’d only made it this far because she slept with the right people. In the end, Snoop probably understood that he’d taken things a bit too far, and stopped the feud.
Sinead O’Connor vs. the American Music Awards
Earlier this year, a couple of weeks before the American Music Awards 2014, Sinead O’Connor took to her blog to rant that she’d been invited to perform at the AMAs and was even led to believe that she would be sharing the same stage as the Pope, in what was supposed to be a shocking moment producers had in mind.
She also said that producers lied to her and eventually dumped her to the curb, and acted in such an unprofessional manner as to make a rookie ashamed. In response, producers claimed that she’d approached them begging them to let her perform, and that she was pretty much crazy to claim otherwise.
Obviously, she didn’t perform at the AMAs at all.
Solange vs. Jay Z
The title of most scandalous feud of the year goes to Solange Knowles and her brother-in-law Jay Z, Beyonce’s husband. We might never know what caused them to get into such a heated fight as they were leaving a MET Gala party, but the elevator footage showing Solange put a serious beatdown on Jay will be for ever burned in our memory.
Solange kicked and punched and hit him with her purse, and would have probably caused him some serious damage had she not been restrained by his bodyguard. All this time, Beyonce just sat there, coolly looking at her sister as she unleashed hell on her husband.
There is some speculation that the entire outburst was a PR stunt to drive ticket sales for Beyonce and Jay’s joint tour, but there’s no way of knowing if there’s any truth at the bottom of it. Solange and Jay seem to have kissed and made up since, but if they didn’t, they’re at least making an effort to keep it under wraps.
