Ivanka Trump, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian and the world’s most multi-layered birthday cake
Ivanka Trumpdaughter of ArabellaThe ’13th Birthday Cake’ has four layers, but from a cultural anthropologist’s perspective, the questions and conversations it raises are many more, including Taylor Swift, Kim KardashianAnd Donald Trumppresidential campaign
Ivanka, daughter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, shared photos of the sweet treat, featuring lyrics from Swift’s “Blank Space,” on Thursday along with a birthday wish for her eldest daughter Arabella, among a series of family photos that included the teen riding a horse, with friends, with her parents in India at a lavish pre-wedding bash for Ambani, and more. Kardashian, a longtime Swift foe, commented on the photo, writing, “Happy Birthday Arabella 🤍.” Kardashian and Ivanka are longtime friends and celebrated Ivanka’s most recent birthday together last October, along with their daughters.
Kardashian and Swift, however? Not friends. Kardashian was apparently the subject of Swift’s diss track “thanK you aIMee” on her most recent album, with lyrics that seemed to allude to Kardashian’s role in Swift’s feud with Kardashian’s then-husband. Kanye West about the lyrics of his song “Famous”. Swift spoke about the impact of the disaster on her mental health in TIME Interview Person of the Year in December 2023.
“You have a completely fabricated frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, that Kim Kardashian edited and then released to tell people that I was a liar,” she said. “That took me to a place I had never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave my rented house for a year. I was afraid to answer the phone. I pushed most of the people in my life away because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I was really, really depressed.”
Blood? It’s bad.
The birthday post was all typical mom stuff, if you think of your mom as the super-rich princess of the MAGA empire, a title she once again showed signs of embracing despite trying to distance herself from dear old dad in the past. It was also typical teenage girl stuff that loves Swift’s music, as Arabella clearly does: The cake, with white frosting on a white background, read “Boys only wanna love when it’s torture” (sic), lyrics from Swift’s hit “Blank Space,” with red candles burning “13,” representing both Arabella’s age and Swift’s favorite number.
“The best cake for my favorite Swiftie,” Ivanka wrote on a photo of the cake, which, when cut open, had bright red frosting oozing out, just like the cake Swift crashed into in her music video. A nice touch, although we did note what appeared to be evidence of someone trying the “trick” of smashing a wine glass on top of the cake to get a piece.
Here’s where things get crazy: Swift despises Donald Trump. Donald Trump, however, doesn’t seem to realize this. In an interview excerpted from the recent book The Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Put America Through the Looking GlassDonald Trump praised how beautiful Swift was, saying the word “beautiful” five times in one quote, but with the caveat that “I think she’s a liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump.” (Yes, he referred to himself in the third person.) He went on to wonder, “But is she a liberal, or is that just an act?”
No, she’s “probably” not a fan, and her political ideology isn’t “just an act,” according to a series of tweets Swift sent in May 2020, including one that read, “After fanning the flames of white supremacy and racism throughout your presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts’??? We’re voting for you in November. @realdonaldtrump.”
