Taylor Swift apologizes to Nicki Minaj, nation can finally begin to heal

Taylor Swift has apologized for a Twitter feud she inadvertently started Tuesday with hip-hop artist Nicki Minaj, whose tweets criticizing the music industry Swift took as a personal affront.

Minaj swiftly responded, thanking Swift for her sincere apology.

The apology comes after a brief but highly publicized social media firestorm largely ignited by Swift and fueled by both music fans and the media. After not receiving MTV Music Video Award nominations for her videos "Anaconda" and "Feelin' Myself," Minaj took the music industry to task for judging black female artists differently from their white female counterparts. Swift, proving, as one writer put it, that she is "the most paranoid public figure since Nixon," thought the tweets were directed at her and fired back, defending herself and her VMA nomination.

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While Swift has mostly kept quiet since her original tweets accusing Minaj of "pitting women against each other," neither Minaj nor the internet remained silent on the matter. While many gossip sites were quick to play up the drama, many of the ensuing tweets and blog posts actually started an interesting conversation on race, gender, and the music industry, as Minaj herself noted on her Instagram on Wednesday evening.

Even Piers Morgan weighed in with his largely unwanted opinion, extending his sympathies to Swift — reason enough for anyone to reassess their pro-Swift stance. And now that Swift has extended the olive branch, we can all look towards a brighter future where the two megastars can put the bad blood behind them and record the collaboration album that will finally allow the nation to heal.