Taylor Swift best friend's defence of singer over Kanye West feud branded 'sad and desperate'

A source close to Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West has branded comments made by Taylor Swift's best friend Abigail Anderson "a sad and desperate attempt to redirect blame by attacking a three-year-old child".

On Monday, Ms Anderson defended Swift after her feud with West and Kardashian-West escalated when the reality TV mogul shared clips of a phone call between her husband and Swift without the singer’s permission. In the call, West and Swift were discussing the lyrics to his song “Famous”. The lyrics have been a source of contention for the two parties for months, with the Kardashian-Wests claiming they ran lyrics about Swift past the 26-year-old. Swift denies approving the line: “I made that b**** famous”.

In her own response, Ms Anderson took issue with Swift being referred to as a “b****” and said she was "praying" for the rapper and Kardashian-West's three-year-old daughter North.

“I pray God helps your daughter understand that despite how many times she’ll hear daddy reference all women as ‘b*****s’ she isn’t one," one now-deleted tweet said.

“Lastly, I pray for forgiveness. May God forgive you and your wife for doing to others the very things you pray are NEVER done to your daughter,” she wrote.

A source described as close to West and Kardashian-West told the Independent on Tuesday: “What a sad and desperate attempt to redirect blame by attacking a three-year-old child. We will pray that God helps Taylor and her camp learn how to live an authentic life, and to no longer lie or be deceitful.”

Ms Anderson is a childhood friend of Swift and is regularly seen mingling with Swift’s high-profile “squad” members on Instagram. Her earlier tweets have now been deleted, with Ms Anderson claiming she had received death threats.

In a statement, Swift accused West, 39, and Kardashian-West, 35, of “character assassination” after the release of the Snapchat video. “Where is this video of Kanye telling me that he was going to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened […] Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination,” she wrote on Instagram.

Representatives for Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the full transcript of Kardashian-West's Snapchat recording below:

Kanye West: Okay, dope – you still got the Nashville number?

Taylor Swift: I still have the Nashville area code, but I had to change it.

[cuts to Kanye rapping] KW: “For all my southside n****s that know me best, I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.”

TS: I’m like, this close to over exposure.

KW: Oh well, I think this is a really cool thing to have.

TS: I know. It’s like a compliment, kind of.

KW: What I give a f**k about is just you as a person, and as a friend, I want things that make you feel good. I don’t wanna do rap that makes people feel bad.

TS: Umm I mean, yeah. Go with whatever line you think is better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it. That’s really nice.

KW: Oh, yeah. I just had a responsibility to you as a friend, and thanks for being so cool about it.

TS: Aw, thanks, um, yeah. I really appreciate it, like, the heads up is so nice. [muffled] without like even asking or seeing if I would be okay with it and I just really appreciate it. Like, I never would have expected you to like, tell me about a line in one of your songs.

KW: It’s pretty crazy.

TS: And then the flowers that you sent me, I like Instagrammed a picture of them and it’s like the most Instagram likes I’ve ever gotten. It was like 2.7 [Snapchat ends]

KW: Relationships are more important than punch lines, you know?

TS: Yeah! I don’t think anyone would listen to that and be like “That’s a real diss, she must be crying.” It’s just, you’ve got to tell the story that way it happened to you and the way that you experienced it. You honestly didn’t know who I was before that. It doesn’t matter that I sold 7 million of that album before you did that which is what happened, you didn’t know who I was before that. It’s fine.

TS: I might be in debt, but I can make these things happen. I have the ideas to do it and I create these things and concepts. I’m always going to respect you. I’m really glad that you have the respect to call me and tell me that as a friend about the song. It’s a really cool thing to do and a really good show of friendship so thank you.

KW: Thank you too.

TS: And you know, if people ask me about it I think it would be great for me to be like ‘Look, he called me and told me the line before it came out. Joke’s on you guys, we’re fine.’ You guys want to call this a feud; you want to call this throwing shade but right after the song comes out I’m going to be on a Grammys red carpet and they’re going to ask me about it and I’ll be like ‘he called me.’ It’s awesome that you’re so outspoken about this and be like 'Yeah, she does. It made her famous.' It’s more provocative to say ‘might still have sex.’ It doesn’t matter to me. There’s not one that hurts my feelings and one that doesn't."