Kayla Nicole’s Halloween costume nearly broke the internet, and now, its inspiration is weighing in.
In a video shared by Nicole on Halloween, the model and influencer is seen recreating Toni Braxton’s look from the video to her 2000 hit single “He Wasn't Man Enough.” The song is sung from the perspective of Braxton to another woman, who married her ex boyfriend after Braxton left him. The specific lines Nicole was dancing to contained the lyrics: “Don’t you know that he was my man? / But I chose to let him go / So why do you act like I still care about him?”
Braxton was asked about the video in an interview on Entertainment Tonight, which was shared on Friday, November 21. “I like to think that she was just paying homage to me and did it for Halloween,” said Braxton of the clip.
But when ET’s Kevin Frazier explained the context of the video — which was thought to be shade toward Taylor Swift, who is now engaged to Nicole’s ex Travis Kelce — Braxton replied, “Oh that’s bitter.”
The clip came just weeks after Swift dropped her 12th studio album The Life of a Showgirl which featured the song “Opalite.” Though Swift doesn’t call out anyone by name on the song, many listeners gathered that certain lines were about Nicole — who dated Kelce from 2017 to 2022.
“You couldn’t understand it, why you felt alone / You were in it for real, she was in her phone and you were just a pose,” sings Swift on the song.
When Nicole posted her alleged response, she quickly felt the wrath of the Swifties, which prompted her to delete her Twitter account. But not before Swifties dug up old problematic tweets of hers, for which she has since apologized.