Taylor Swift has poured water on the suggestion of a feud between herself and Charli XCX.
Over the weekend, New York magazine published a new interview about the British star’s huge success in 2024 off the back of her hit album Brat.
But what may have come as a surprise to some fans is that it also contained some glowing comments from the Shake It Off singer.
“I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011,” Taylor 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.”
So, why exactly do people think there may have been beef between the pair?
Charli actually supported Taylor on her Reputation stadium tour back in 2017, telling Pitchfork two years later: “I’m really grateful that she asked me on that tour. But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to five-year-olds.”
More recently, there was widespread speculation that a track on Charli’s album, Sympathy Is A Knife, was about the 14-time Grammy winner.
“This one girl taps my insecurities, don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling,” Charli sings in the opening verse, later adding on the chorus: “I couldn’t even be her if I tried I’m opposite, I’m on the other side.”
Another more explicit lyric sees Charli lament that she doesn’t “wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show”, with Taylor having previously dated Matty Healy, the bandmate of Charli’s fiancé George Daniel, for a short period in 2021.
“People are gonna think what they want to think,” Charli told New York magazine of Sympathy Is A Knife.
“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.”
Asked if she ever thought about leaving out the “don’t wanna see her backstage” lyric, Charli responded: “No.”
Following an apparent pause, the Apple singer added: “You do the silence game. But I know that well — where you go silent and want me to talk more. But I don’t care about it being awkward. We’ll sit in silence.”
Charli released Brat in June, and despite its acclaim and impressive sales figures, it was held off the top spot by yet another iteration of Taylor’s latest album The Tortured Poets Department.
When Charli teamed up with Billie Eilish (another artist who was blocked from a UK number one by a Tortured Poets reissue) last month, fans also speculated that certain lyrics (“You wanna guess what me and Billie have been textin’ about?”) could be interpreted as shade towards Taylor.
When fans at a Charli DJ set in Brazil began chanting “Taylor is dead” after their chart battle, Charli wrote on her Instagram story: “Can the people who do this please stop. Online or at my shows. 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.”
