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- Fans think Taylor Swift is shading Charli XCX on her new album, "The Life of a Showgirl."Rumors of a rift between the women were sparked last year by Charli's song "Sympathy is a Knife."Swift and Charli have a decadelong history as friends, tourmates, and pop-star adversaries.
Taylor Swift reignited stan-war discourse on Friday with "Actually Romantic," the seventh song on her new album, "The Life of a Showgirl."
"I heard you call me 'Boring Barbie' when the coke's got you brave / High-fived my ex, and then you said you're glad he ghosted me," Swift sings to open the song.
"Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face," she continues. "Some people might be offended / But it's actually sweet / All the time you've spent on me."
The song seems like a direct response to "Sympathy Is a Knife" from Charli XCX's 2024 album "Brat," which fans believe was inspired by Charli's competitive feelings toward Swift, her former tourmate-turned-contender on the pop charts.
In an audio clip on Amazon Music, Swift said the song is about "realizing that someone else has kind of had a one-sided adversarial relationship with you."
"All of a sudden, they start doing too much. They start letting you know that actually, you've been living in their head rent-free, and you had no idea," Swift continued. "How flattering that someone has made you such a big part of their reality."
In "Actually Romantic," Swift mockingly reinterprets her muse's resentment as flirty affection. The song marks a reversal from Swift's public charm offensive, which she deployed when New York Magazine profiled Charli in August 2024.
"I've been blown away by Charli's melodic sensibilities since I first heard 'Stay Away' in 2011," Swift told the magazine. "Her writing is surreal and inventive, always. She just takes a song to places you wouldn't expect it to go, and she's been doing it consistently for over a decade. I love to see hard work like that pay off."
Charli's fans had been circulating rumors of a feud with Swift since 'Brat' was released
Much of "Brat" explores recurring themes in Charli's discography: Her frustrating journey through the music industry, her struggle to earn recognition from gatekeepers, and her desire for stardom.
"Sympathy Is a Knife," in particular, unpacks Charli's complicated relationship with a fellow musician who triggers Charli's fears of inadequacy. Similar to "Girl, So Confusing" — another fan-favorite track on "Brat," whose confirmed muse is Lorde — Charli admits this competitive relationship is largely one-sided, perhaps even imaginary.
"This one girl taps my insecurities / Don't know if it's real or if I'm spiraling," Charli sings on "Sympathy," adding that her now-husband, The 1975 drummer George Daniel, chalks it up to paranoia. (In "Actually Romantic," Swift sings, "How many times has your boyfriend said, 'Why are we always talking 'bout her?'")
Fans quickly spread the theory that "Sympathy" was written about Swift, most likely during her short-lived relationship with Daniel's bandmate Matty Healy.
"Don't wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend's show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick," Charli sings.
Charli is also close friends with Healy's current fiancée, Gabbriette Bechtel, and gives her a shout-out in the album's opening track "360," essentially eliminating Bechtel as a "Sympathy" suspect.
Despite the speculation, Charli has made it clear that neither "Girl, So Confusing" nor "Sympathy Is a Knife" is a diss track.
"They're really just about how it's so complicated being an artist, especially a female artist, where you are pitted against your peers but also expected to be best friends with every single person constantly," she said in a since-deleted TikTok.
Charli reiterated this position during her interview with New York Magazine, declining to answer direct questions about Swift.
"People are gonna think what they want to think," she told the reporter. "That song is about me and my feelings and my anxiety and the way my brain creates narratives and stories in my head when I feel insecure and how I don't want to be in those situations physically when I feel self-doubt."
However, upon the release of "Brat," Charli's fans were still determined to defend her honor against perceived threats.
Taylor Nation, the social media arm of Swift's PR team, seemed to fuel the feud rumors by announcing six deluxe versions of her album, "The Tortured Poets Department," the same week that "Brat" was released. These variants were UK exclusives, only available to buy in Charli's home country.
The fresh boost of digital downloads pushed "The Tortured Poets Department" back to No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart for a sixth week, while "Brat" debuted at No. 2. As a result, Charli's fans accused Swift of blocking "Brat" from the top position on purpose.
Meanwhile, in the US, "Brat" debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, lagging far behind Swift's streaming numbers. By comparison, "The Tortured Poets Department" logged 17 weeks at No. 1 in the US.
But despite Charli's lower chart performance, "Brat" dominated pop culture in 2024 with rave reviews and star-studded remixes, including "Girl, So Confusing" with Lorde herself. She also released a remix of "Sympathy Is a Knife" with Ariana Grande, which examines fame more broadly as a double-edged sword. ("It's a knife when you're finally on top / 'Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall to the bottom.")
Swift brought Charli onstage in 2015 and recruited her as a tour opener in 2018
George Pimentel/LP5/Getty Images for TAS
To Charli's earlier point, she has found herself pitted against Swift since at least 2014, when both women released new albums: "Sucker" and "1989," respectively.
In reviews and media coverage of her major-label debut, Charli was framed as "taking shots at pop's elite," aiming to "join the ranks of Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Iggy Azalea," who were in the genre's upper echelon at the time. Both her artistry and sales figures were compared to Swift's, with NPR noting that "Sucker" faced a commercial disadvantage by arriving in the wake of a "massive Taylor Swift album." (Sound familiar?)
The following year, Charli performed a cover of Swift's hit song "Shake It Off" for BBC Radio's Live Lounge. Just a few months later, the two women squashed any lingering hints of tension when Charli made a surprise cameo during the 1989 World Tour.
Even though Charli had recently canceled her own tour dates, she joined Swift onstage in Toronto for a duet of "Boom Clap," Charli's biggest solo hit to this day. Swift also shared a video of their performance on X (formerly Twitter), writing, "I LOVE YOU @charli_xcx !!!"
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for TAS
In 2018, Swift upped the ante by recruiting Charli and Camila Cabello as openers for the Reputation Stadium Tour.
"I can't wait to see you, can't wait to see them, really excited just about the whole thing in general," Swift told fans in a filmed announcement.
Throughout the tour's global run, Charli and Cabello would often join Swift onstage to perform "Shake It Off."
During an appearance on the British talk show "Sunday Brunch," Charli gushed about Swift as a kind person and "incredible businesswoman."
"She makes us feel, like, so welcome. It feels like a girl gang on tour together. It's really good," Charli said.
Charli angered Swifties by comparing the 'Reputation' tour attendees to children
In 2019, one year after the Reputation Stadium Tour wrapped up, Charli reflected on the experience during an interview with Pitchfork.
"I'm really grateful that [Taylor] asked me on that tour," Charli told the website. "But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up onstage and waving to 5-year-olds."
The comment was widely interpreted as Charli throwing shade at Swift and her fan base, prompting Charli to reiterate her gratitude in a statement shared on social media.
"In the printed version of this much wider conversation, my answers about this tour were boiled down into one kind of weird sentence," Charli wrote. "Leading up to that tour I'd been playing a tonne of 18+ club shows and so to be onstage in front of all ages was new to me and made me approach my performances with a whole new kind of energy."
Charli also said it was "brilliant" and "fun" to perform for Swift's audience, adding, "There is absolutely no shade and only love here."
Following the release of 'Brat,' Charli chastised fans for starting anti-Swift chants at her concerts
According to Billboard, "Brat" achieved the biggest debut week of Charli's career, though some fans were still disappointed when it succumbed to "Poets" on the charts.
When Charli hit the road for a string of "Brat" concerts and DJ sets, she was met with a wave of anti-Swift energy, including the chant "Taylor is dead" from a crowd at Club Zig in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
After videos of the chant circulated on social media, Charli told her fans to stop immediately.
"can the people who do this please stop. online or at my shows," she wrote on her Instagram story on June 23, per Billboard. "it is the opposite of what i want and it disturbs me that anyone would think there is room for this in this community. i will not tolerate it."
Charli has not publicly reacted to "Actually Romantic," and representatives for Charli and Swift didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
