[Source: Entertainment Weekly]

The singer’s new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” features her most pointed — and darkly funny — clapback yet.

Look what you made her do.

Taylor Swift has never been one to shy away from a little shade (see: “thanK you aIMee,” “Bad Blood,” “Look What You Made Me Do”), and her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, features her most pointed — and darkly funny — diss yet.

While Swift famously never confirms whom her songs are about, all roads in “Actually Romantic” seem to lead to none other than Charli XCX, who opened for Swift during her Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018.

First, a little history lesson on these two.

In 2019, Charli drew the ire of some Swifties when she said her time on the tour “kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds.” She later clarified this remark in a lengthy statement on social media.

In something of an awkward connection, Charli is now married to George Daniel, the drummer for the 1975; the two got engaged in November 2023.

As Swifties know all too well, the frontman of the 1975 is Swift’s ex Matty Healy, whom the Tortured Poets Department singer dated in the spring of 2023. Charli has talked publicly about being close to Healy and his now-fiancée, the model and musician Gabbriette Bechtel.

In June 2024, Charli released her sixth studio album, Brat, and fans immediately started speculating that she wrote its track “Sympathy Is a Knife” about Swift and her relationship with Healy, as it included lyrics like “I don’t wanna share this space / I don’t wanna force a smile / This one girl taps my insecurities / Don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling,” and “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick.”

While Swift fans latched on to that last lyric in particular, Charli said in a TikTok before the album’s release that it did not feature any diss tracks. She also later addressed the rumors in an interview with New York magazine.

“People are gonna think what they want to think,” she said. “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.” In that same interview, Swift praised Charli’s songwriting as “surreal and inventive, always.”

In the magazine’s spread were images of Charli’s fake bloody severed hand wearing a friendship bracelet, which some fans saw as shade given that the accessory was essentially synonymous with Swift’s Eras Tour. However, the photographer later explained the vision behind it, saying, “She’s sort of trapped by fame and all the tabloid photographers are chasing her. An animal trapped in the woods would bite off its own limb — she bites off her hand.”

So, at least publicly, the two singers have downplayed any notions of a rift. But with “Actually Romantic,” it sounds like Swift could be putting in her two cents.

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