Our Favorite Beefs of 2023

2023 was a big year for many things—celebrity divorces, reality TV scandals, orca revolutions—and a not-so-big year for sportsmanship and the high road. Rather, it was a year defined by beef, by simmering conflicts that boiled over into full-on, petty wars, Twitter feuds, and other nastiness. In 2023, far-right Congresswomen duked it out in a bathroom, celebrities threw hands at their own fans (via social media, of course), and artists (rightfully) fought their industries. Under these conditions, of course, you pray for peace—but you also keep tabs on who’s beefing with who, how it all started, and how you can round it all up into a fun end-of-year slideshow.

With that, we present Jezebel’s favorite Beefs of 2023: the ridiculous, vicious, and, of course, needlessly silly fights and feuds that we followed and spent far too much time thinking about this year. I hope someday we can all get along—that is the dream, isn’t it??? But that day is not today. Today is for haters everywhere, and for immortalizing the pettiness that defined 2023.

Selena Gomez’s whole brand is being ~relatable~, whatever that means for someone with a staggering estimated net worth of $800 million. And to close out 2023, she took that relatability a step further by engaging with at least a dozen Instagram commenters who criticized her new relationship with producer Benny Blanco, essentially telling many of them to go to hell. “I will never allow your words to guide my life. Ever. I’m done,” she wrote in response to one user who was critical of the relationship. She replied to another user, “then why has he been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The end,” and even randomly mic-dropped that she’s had Botox. In response to someone writing, “SELENA YOU ARE GORGEOUS WHAT THE HELL,” implying she’s out of Blanco’s league, Gomez memorably wrote back: “I am gorgeous. I’m normal.”

Celebrities beefing with their own fans isn’t new: I give you Doja Cat and NBA star Kevin Durant (more on that shortly). But to be frank, I’ve never seen a meltdown of the caliber of Gomez’s—not because it was especially vicious, but because it was just… weird. “I am gorgeous. I’m normal.” What??? Oh, Selena. Never change. Or, maybe change a little. —Kylie Cheung

Devin Booker and Luka Doncic share what is probably my favorite rivalry in the NBA right now for many reasons, but at the top of that list is their insane chemistry, as documented above. The beef between these two, both arguably top 10 players in the league, dates back to 2022 when the Suns and Mavs battled it out during seven games in the Western Conference semi-final, and they were both being pretty bitchy to each other the whole damn time. But said beef finally exploded and got delightfully physical in a game in March, shortly after a series of chaotic last-minute trades made the Suns and Mavs the most-watched teams in the league. As you can see in the video above, some inaudible trash talk toward the end of the very close game transpires and, moments later, Doncic is in Booker’s face, their foreheads and noses touch, they grab-slash-push each other, and every time I watch this exchange (which, as you might’ve gathered, is many times) I feel like I’m watching the live reenactment of a dirty Wattpad fic. This has been my lock screen since March.

It’s still not clear what Booker said that got Doncic riled up like that, though a league-wide survey in April found most players regard Booker as one of the top trash-talkers in the NBA. Since that explosive fight in March, things have calmed down between the two: Doncic recently declined to say he likes and gets along with Booker, but he did say he respects him. They played each other on Christmas Day and there was no cat-fight this time around. I’ll say it: I hope that changes and things get nasty between them again in 2024. I may be a pacifist but when it comes to the NBA—and specifically Luka and Book—I’m here for the chaos. —KC

Given everything that’s happened to Taylor Swift in 2023—the good, the bad, and the Kelce—it would be easy to forget that she began the year with a breakup from her long-term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn. Because said splits tend to drive people to the brink of sanity, Swift then had a brief fling with The 1975’s frontman, Matty Healy. Healy’s schtick—if you’d like to call it that—has long been his controversial (and profoundly stupid) opinions and an insistence upon voicing them onstage. This year, Healy took aim at Boygenius, Ice Spice, and even Swift herself (kind of) when an interview he did in 2016 resurfaced, in which he suggested dating her would be “emasculating” given her immense success. Naturally, Swifties were not amused and Healy was forced to do the one thing he did more this year than kiss his young fans: issue an apology. Here’s hoping he’ll “do better” in 2024. And if he doesn’t, we know who to sic on him. —Audra Heinrichs

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) have one of the more fascinating beefs to me because, on paper, what is there to fight about? Their atrocious politics are virtually identical. But alas, a series of spats throughout 2023—including who was better at drafting articles of impeachment against President Biden—culminated in Greene publicly calling Boebert a “nasty, little bitch” in June, ultimately resulting in Greene’s expulsion from the Freedom Caucus. Last month, in a very random tweet, Greene again lashed out at her Republican colleague, referring to her as “vaping groping Lauren Boebert” in reference to the Colorado Congresswoman’s very public, very horny date night behavior in October. At another point, all the way back in January, these two reportedly got into it and nearly came to blows in a bathroom. Frankly, I think this beef is one of the only positive contributions either of these two women has made in their careers, in that simultaneously tanking each other out of Congress would be a real public service. Praying for their mutual downfalls come 2024. —KC

In May, the internet went wild over reports that a female orca, White Gladis, was leading the charge in sinking yachts and sailboats off the coast of Europe. Scientists suspect that White Gladis had some type of traumatic run-in with an illegal fishing boat at some point and is now teaching the younger orca generation how to rid their ocean home of rich people’s boats. Three orcas (not including White Gladis) even attacked a yacht named “Champagne” that was sailing through the Mediterranean Sea—making this the most apt, and most poetic, Beef of 2023. No one’s been hurt or killed (including the whales) so I feel comfortable saying I hope to see more of the orcas’ efforts to sink the rich in 2024. —Lauren Tousignant

This year, country music found its most formidable opponent since The Chicks in Maren Morris—who, quite fittingly, opened for them on their summer 2023 tour. When it comes to resisting the industry’s reliance on racism, misogyny, queerphobia, and the same old songs that reflect “traditional” (read: tired) ideals, Morris has always dug her boots in. Who could forget her 2022 feud with Tucker Carlson, Jason Aldean, and the latter’s clip-in selling “Insurrection Barbie” wife?

In September, Morris solidified her stance with a new single, The Tree, and in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. She was finally divesting herself of an industry that, per her observations, refuses to evolve along with emerging artists who won’t just shut up and sing. “I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over, but it’s burning itself down without my help,” Morris poignantly said. Top 40 country found dead in a ditch!!! —AH

OK, I know Carli Lloyd is a paid Fox Sports analyst, so it’s essentially her job to have strong opinions and occasionally say stupid things that will get attention, but her tirade against the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team this summer was really stupid.

During their third match of the World Cup, the U.S. tied Portugal in a 0-0 draw. Not an ideal score, sure, but that was all they needed to move on to the Round of 16. Naturally, they celebrated and took photos with their fans. But Lloyd thought this was bullshit. “I have never witnessed something like that. There’s a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family,” Lloyd said on the Fox Sports Studio Show. “But to be dancing, to be smiling. I mean, the player of the match was that post. You were lucky to not be going home right now.” Two weeks later, after the U.S. team got eliminated, Lloyd (who herself is a World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medal winner) defended her original comments, explaining that “I think maybe I was the only one brave enough to say it how it is.” Ah yes, it takes a lot of courage to get mad at people for appreciating their fans.

This maybe isn’t your traditional Beef, since the U.S. team pretty much ignored everything Lloyd said, but it was still fun to watch Carli needlessly act like a brat. —LT

Can I just preface this by declaratively stating that I love Kevin Durant??? There will never again be a player as simultaneously generationally talented and generationally messy-slash-unhealthily-online as this man. He’s spent the last several years arguing with fans on Twitter—about his decisions to leave teams, about the mechanics of the game of basketball, about, well, everything—but managed to top himself in June this year. On a Friday night, while other NBA players were spending their summer break partying and traveling, Durant inexplicably hopped on a Twitter Space populated with a handful of users, each with a couple of dozen followers to their name, to argue about his legacy and whether he’s a top-five player. He told them their opinions were “trash” and accused them of not even liking basketball. Fair! It was delightful, it was strange, and it made me marvel at the limitations of money and power—because how can you have so much and still find in yourself the desire to duke it out with Twitter randos?? Just go on vacation, Kev, you’ve earned it. Come 2024, I can’t wait to see which lucky fans this man chooses to beef with on the internet next. —KC

I still snicker every time I think about the reports that came out of Mar-a-Lago this summer that said Kari Lake had basically moved in to try and become Donald Trump’s running mate. “Kari Lake is there every night,” a source told People in June. “There’s a suite there that she practically lives in.” But, by July, the new roomies were already having issues. “She’s a shameless, ruthless demagogue who wants power and will do whatever she has to do to get it,” a Trump adviser told the Daily Beast. Trump also apparently hates that Lake is a “spotlight hound” who always wants attention, and is annoyed that she’s “running around saying she should be VP.” It’s all just so perfectly and disgustingly hypocritical. Needless to say, she was gone by October. And I’m going to enjoy laughing about it now...in case I’m crying about it come November. —LT

Britney Spears had a hell of a year. She got a divorce, maybe reconciled with her mother, and wrote a bestseller. Most importantly though, she dragged Justin Timberlake to hell and left him there where he belongs. In her memoir, The Woman in Me, the pop icon alleged that her ex-boyfriend humiliated her in a myriad of ways which included publicly cheating on her, deliberately fueling accusations that she was unfaithful to him with the release of “Cry Me A River,” and speaking in a blaccent. Better yet, the discourse surrounding Spears’ recollections arrived just as her ex was celebrating his 11th wedding anniversary with Jessica Biel. Timberlake, in fact, was apparently so gagged that he never responded to any of the damning anecdotes Spears shared. May Spears’ redemption arc continue in 2024. —AH