Taylor Swift and Charli XCX have been at the top of pop culture gossip over the last few days after the former released her 12th studio album with a diss track that many think is about Charli XCX. While the Brat singer has been minding her business since its release, some fans think she is teasing a response song.
Swift dropped her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Friday, October 3, to mixed reviews from both dedicated Swifties and apathetic listeners. While Swift’s albums always illicit a strong response, this one was particularly poignant because it seemed she included a diss track. In the seventh song on the album, “Actually Romantic,” Swift sings about someone who called her “boring Barbie,” and how Swift finds it “sweet” that this unnamed person thinks about her so much.
“But it’s actually sweet/ All the time you’ve spent on me/ It’s honestly wild/ All the effort you’ve put in,” the lyrics say.
Fans have speculated that the song is in response to Charli’s “Sympathy is a Knife,” which many believe is about Taylor Swift. In Charli’s song, she sings about a person who brings out her insecurities. “’Cause I couldn’t even be her if I tried/ I’m opposite, I’m on the other side/ I feel all these feelings I can’t control/ Oh no, don’t know why,” the lyrics go.
Both songs also seem to reference Swift’s ex-boyfriend Matty Healy of The 1975. Charli is married to the band’s drummer, George Daniel, and is friends with Healy.
After the song’s release, fans anxiously waited to see if Charli XCX would come back with a response to “Actually Romantic,” and now they think she’s gearing up to make one.
On Sunday, October 5, Charli posted a five-second video of a studio with just one second of sound that matches her Brat album. She just simply captioned it “<3,” leaving people to speculate what it means.
