Katy Perry confirms Taylor Swift feud during Carpool Karaoke with James Corden

Pop stars were long-rumoured to have fallen out over backing dancers for their tours

Katy Perry has properly addressed the rumoured feud between her and Taylor Swift during a game of Carpool Karaoke with James Corden.

Fans and the media have speculated for years that the two pop stars had a somewhat frosty relationship, fuelled by moments such as the release of Taylor Swift's song 'Bad Blood', which was strongly rumoured to be about Perry, and coy comments made during interviews.

In a 2015 interview Swift went so far as to say: "I'm not giving them anything to write about. I'm never going to talk about her in my interview."

But in a new episode of The Late Late Show that aired on 22 May, Corden asked Perry: "There's no denying it. There's Taylor beef. And when are we going to clear that beef up?"

Rather than sticking to her usual vague script about women needing to stick together, Perry confirmed that the long-rumoured reason for the spat was to do with backing dancers for their tours.

Swift had hinted that this was the reason behind it as far back as 2014, in an interview with Rolling Stone where she was asked about the person behind 'Bad Blood', but refused to explicitly name Perry.

"She did something so horrible. I was like, 'Oh, we're just straight-up enemies'," she said. "And it wasn't even about a guy! It had to do with business.

"She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I'm surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It's awkward, and I don't like it."

Perry claimed in the new Carpool Karaoke session that she called Swift to try and resolve the issue before it escalated and the media and their fans caught on.

"It's about backing dancers," she said. "It's so crazy! Ok, so there are three backing dancers that went on tour with her, right? And they asked me before they want on tour if they could go and I was like, 'Yeah of course, I'm not on a record cycle! Get the work! She's great! But I will be on a record cycle in about a year, so be sure to put a 30-day contingency in your contract so you can get out if you want to join me when I say I'm going back on.'"

She continued: "So that year came up, right? And I texted all of them, because I'm very close with them, and I said, 'Look, just FYI, I'm about to start, I want to put the word out there'. And they said: 'Alright, we're going to talk to management about it.' And they did. And they got fired. And I tried to talk to her about it, and she wouldn't speak to me."

Corden clarified whether Perry had tried to call Swift, to which Perry responded: "I do the right thing anytime it feels like a fumble, and it was a full shutdown. And she writes a song about me! And I'm like, 'Oh, cool, cool, cool. That's how you wanna deal with it? Karma'."

"Can we take the beef off the grill?" Corden asked.

"I think personally that women together, not divided, none of this petty s***, women together will heal the world," Perry answered.

"Say it sister," Corden responded.