Billboard apologizes to Taylor Swift

Billboard issued an apology to Taylor Swift for publishing an image of her that was from a Kanye West video depicting her in bed with him.

The music chart organization had posted a montage of Swift to celebrate her achievements as part of its Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century countdown.

“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 wrote on social media.

The video montage included clips from some of Swift’s music videos, photos of her in concert and posing on award show red carpets.

But fans became angry when they spotted the image of Swift from West’s music video for his 2016 song, “Famous.” In that music video, West was seen in bed with a wax figurine modeled on Swift and also a figurine of his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, among other celebrities.

The song, and subsequent video, attracted controversy for depicting Swift naked and lyrics which said West would have sex with her. He also rapped in “Famous” that he made “that b**** famous.”

The drama around “Famous” was just one chapter of the long-running feud between Swift and West which began at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, when the rapper stormed the stage after she had won Video of the Year. West snatched the microphone from her hand to say the award should have gone to Beyoncé instead.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.