Taylor Swift 'mum's cancer almost stopped tour'

Taylor Swift reportedly seriously considered cancelling her world tour after her mother's cancer diagnosis.

The 25-year-old's The 1989 World Tour kicked off on May 5, just a month after she confirmed her mother Andrea was battling the disease. It's been claimed that the star was in such a state of shock she spoke to her team about possibly postponing or cancelling the dates, which are due to run until December.

"When her mom got sick, she expressed that she was seriously considering not doing her tour," an insider claimed to New York Daily News' Confidenti@l column. "Since the very beginning her mom has travelled with her and been to every concert. Taylor didn't want to do it alone and be worried about her mom and so far away."

It was apparently Andrea who convinced Taylor that the show should go on. She has been instrumental in helping her daughter achieve worldwide domination and apparently suggested this could be a way for Taylor to take control of her brand herself.

Andrea's cancer was discovered after Taylor encouraged her to have a complete health check-up at the end of last year. Although the star has opened up to fans about the diagnosis, no details have been revealed.

Her mother has continued to support Taylor though, and she's been spotted at several of her sell-out shows already.

It's been a rollercoaster week for the singer, who was celebrating after picking up nine MTV Video Music Award nominations yesterday. Among her nods were Video of the Year for the star-studded Bad Blood, while her video for Blank Space is nominated in both the Best Female Performance and Best Pop Video categories.

However, her success was tarnished by a Twitter spat with Nicki Minaj last night. Although she's in the running for three prizes, the rapper is furious that her Anaconda promo missed out in the Video of the Year category. When she voiced her irritation on Twitter Taylor waded in to caution her about pitting women against each other. This seemed to infuriate Nicki, who insisted she had never done that and was actually talking about racism in music.

Even Kim Kardashian got pulled into the feud, after she posted a pictures of her Vogue Spain shoot on Twitter. In one she's seen lounging on a sofa on the phone while wagging her finger, and she captioned it: "Imma let you finish but..."

The phrase is what her husband Kanye West uttered during his infamous stage invasion at the 2009 MTV VMAs. He came up uninvited as Taylor picked up the Best Female Video gong, telling the audience that the prize should have gone to Beyoncé Knowles. Many saw this as Kim siding with Nicki, but she was quick to put them right.

"Wait wait I'm in Paris it's the middle of the night & I'm posting my Vogue Spain pics not having a clue what's going on in the music world," she wrote.

"I'm not trying to shade anyone! That's not my style! I just thought that caption was perfect for that pic! Changing the caption now! #ironic (sic)."