A dramatic, protracted friendship breakup is a cornerstone of your early twenties. Think Frances Ha or Walking and Talking or the Sydney Sweeney-Brittany O'Grady plotline from season one of The White Lotus: needing a friend so much you can’t stand her, being so known by your friend that you resent her for it. Even the most drawn-out romantic breakups can’t compare to the long protracted untangling of two women who used to talk every day. The return of books and clothes and overpriced candles. 

There can be so much outright animosity! Is it the insult of being so known? All About Eve, about a theater star who becomes close to a fan before realizing she’s being primed for replacement, becomes more about overt competition. But sometimes it can play like one of those Lifetime domestic thrillers I watched growing up where a nanny spies on a family to kill the wife to marry the husband. Becoming so ordinary to someone else that she can anticipate your every move feels like an intrusion; being so known that you become regular and predictable. It’s beyond flattery, past homage — it’s heist. Remember Bad Art Friend, the New York Times story about a pair of former friends fighting over the interpersonal ramifications of a kidney donation and a short story about that kidney donation? This is kind of that: a dramatic stories of a friendship breakup throughout one friend’s rap career taking off, a tour gone wrong, and a lot of hurt feelings.

Ice Spice, the 24-year-old Bronx drill rapper known primarily for the singles “Boy's a Liar Pt. 2” (with PinkPantheress), Taylor Swift’s “Karma” remix, and “Barbie World” (with Nicki Minaj and Aqua), is not that interesting to me as a musician. The thrill of her initial release was her Annie ringlets and her drill roots, the way she could pair her breezy femininity and coquettishness over a floor-shaking bass. But the allure wore off; that Karma remix (lame, slow, unserious) was a good enough reason why.

But now Ice Spice’s summer 2024 Y2K! Tour sounds more and more like Trap without the hot dad (Josh Harnett), or Frances Ha with 808s. Two of Ice Spice’s former best friends have cut ties with her this summer, both with extensive receipts. Ice Spice isn’t only boring and moody, they say, she’s manipulative and conniving. The creator and musician Baby Storme was her friend in high school; The creator and rapper Cleotrapa was Cleo-trapped on tour with her this year. “It was like she wanted me to be miserable and alone,” Cleo said in a six-part TikTok series posted on Tuesday with over three million views. “And it just didn’t happen because that’s not what God had planned for me, boo.” Are you ready to know about the tour saga that involves being stranded in the desert, a secret trip to a steakhouse, a missing $700, and a fight over hauling luggage? Good. Here’s the full rundown:

April 2024: Baby Storme, an independent artist and childhood friend of Ice Spice, says she will post messages “exposing” Ice Spice’s bullying and hypocrisy. Baby Storme says Ice Spice bullied her when they were tweens, but as they pursued music they became friendly but later fell out over another friend of Ice’s who bullied Baby Storme. 

Among the details she shares: Cleotrapa and Ice Spice are not very close friends — “Isis has always hated Cleo. But she used her so she could appear ‘closer to blackness’” — and Ice Spice is jealous of the rapper Latto. Baby Storme also posted texts confirming that Ice Spice is a colorist, disparaging the musician Doechii for being darker-skinned.

May 2024: In another batch of Baby Storme’s text screenshots, Ice Spice called Nicki Minaj “ungrateful and delusional” over a deal Nicki was trying to convince her to sign, and said Nicki was jealous that Ice owned her own masters. Storme says Ice only used Nicki Minaj for a feature. Ice was also jealous of the rapper Latto, Storme said: “Latto has always been her biggest nightmare and competition. She was jealous of her for years because Latto is who Isis was pretending to be. She purposely used Nicki so she could get a feature and surpass Latto. And she used Nicki and the Barbz to do so.”

The Barbz predictably get worked up over the Baby Storme texts. Azealia Banks, following along from home, replies. When Baby Storme threatens to expose Azealia too, she replies memorably: “Bitch address your little gay husband and them musty ass synthetic braids. Don’t get your arm cut off trying to reach up this high crackbaby.” Relevant to Ice Spice? Not really but Azealia really does have a way with words.

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June 2024: Ice Spice vaguely acknowledges the Baby Storme texts in a radio interview but declines to address them in detail.

August 2024: Enter Cleotrapa, a creator and musician who has been making videos and talking about her life online since about 2018. Cleo is puckish and candid; She has as much personality as Ice Spice has none. Among her hits: “Before I was gonna keep it to myself, but I think I’m a little bothered now.” “Turn this on. Turn it on!” She goes triple platinum in my conversations. She has appeared in Ice Spice’s music videos since “In Ha Mood,” and apparently in Ice’s mind rent free. Cleo opens for the Y2K tour in New Jersey.

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September 2024: Cleo posts a six-part TikTok series about Trap: Ice’s Spice Tour edition. The TL;DR is that despite inviting her on tour, Ice Spice seemed to use every opportunity to make Cleo feel insignificant, in ways big and small. Ice Spice would direct her team to not include Cleo in dressing rooms, food orders, and hotel bookings; when confronted she claimed Cleo was ungrateful at even being given the opportunity to join the tour. After she tried to address one small issue unsuccessfully, Cleo decided to confront Ice Spice about her behavior at the end of the tour, at which point they both decided their friendship was over. (In retrospect, was this about Ice too?)

Part one: ...