Director of Taylor Swift's New Video Thinks "Beyoncé Copied Bad Blood"

Kahn came under fire in 2015 for glorifying white colonialism in Africa in Swift's "Wildest Dreams" video

Pop darling that she is, the creative cushion around Taylor Swift and her work has always been quick to guard even her most indefensible moments. Mostly, these flair-ups revolve around Swift's increasingly problematic visual accompaniments. Occasionally, they mark a moment of very public humiliation (like when Kim Kardashian, of all people, has the receipts.) In the case of her new single "Look What You Made Me Do," the guard went up to preempt both scenarios.

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Twitter dragged the pop star when a still from the video teased an uncanny Lemonade aesthetic. And on cue, the video's director, Joseph Kahn (a heavyweight of 90s and 00s music videos with work on clips from The Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Ice Cube Warren G and literally anyone who's anyone from 1991 on) has risen to take his critics to task and, of course, defend his work, on the project, claiming it was not Taylor who lifted from Beyonce, but Mrs. Carter who did the plagiarizing.

In a recent interview with the LA Times, the director, whose new film, Bodied, satirizes battle-rap culture as a lens into racial and cultural appropriation. took a moment to address those screaming from the Twitter pews "between bites of yellowtail." On whether he and Swift by extension stole black crop top look from "Formation," Kahn rebuked that his new video is "not 'Formation' at all" and that "Formation," was, in fact, swiped from Swift's "Bad Blood" video. He doubles down: "I really do think, by the way, that Beyoncé copied ‘Bad Blood.’" The Beyhive has yet to issue an official response or even a statement addressing the claim, but this has all the makings of a thin-skinned creative making waves by playing victim; a play right out of Swift's own book.

READ: An African Artist Thanks Taylor Swift For Her "Wildest Dreams"

Kahn previously caught the strong arm of critics for his romantic treatment of white colonial Africa in Swift's "Wildest Dreams" video.