Taylor Swift and Charli XCX have lengthy denied there's any pressure between them, however their rumored beef made headlines once more with the discharge of Swift's twelfth studio album, The Lifetime of a Showgirl.
After the album dropped in October 2025, followers instantly started speculating that observe 7, “Really Romantic,” is about Charli.
“What do i do as somebody who's a superfan of each taylor swift and charli xcx,” tweeted one confused listener. One other X person added, “Streets are saying Taylor swift simply dissed my wifey charli XCX.”
Whereas “Really Romantic” will be the first that some followers have ever heard of any alleged drama between Swift and Charli, their relationship really dates again practically a decade. Maintain scrolling for the duo's full historical past:
Could 2018
Charli joined Swift's Repute World Tour as a gap act alongside Camila Cabello. On the time, Charli was finest identified for the hits “Growth Clap” from the Fault in Our Stars soundtrack and the Icona Pop collaboration “I Love It.”
August 2019
Months after the Repute tour wrapped, Charli stated she felt it was time she started headlining her personal excursions, however her feedback had been interpreted by some observers as shade at Swift and her followers. “I'm actually grateful that [Taylor] requested me on that tour,” Charli instructed Pitchfork. “However as an artist, it sort of felt like I used to be getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds. … I've accomplished a lot of [opening for other artists], and it actually cemented my standing as this underdog character, which I like now. However I want to only personal my very own f***ing shit lastly.”
After backlash, Charli clarified that she meant “no shade” and had “solely love” for Swift. “Within the printed model of this a lot wider dialog my solutions about this tour had been boiled down into one sort of bizarre sentence,” she wrote through social media. “Main as much as that tour I'd been enjoying a [ton] of 18+ membership exhibits and so to be on a stage in entrance of all ages was new to me and made me strategy my performances with an entire new sort of vitality — extra so I talked about the way it was sensible opening for Taylor, I'm extraordinarily grateful for the chance I used to be given and the way a lot enjoyable it was to carry out to a brand new viewers!”
Charli continued, “Any tour I've been on with another artist as a gap act has all the time taught me a lot. It's all the time great to observe different artists do their factor, personal their stage and converse their language to their devoted fan bases — and this was very true for the popularity tour.”
April 2024
Swift launched her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Division, which included a number of songs that followers believed to be about her relationship with Matty Healy, who's the lead singer of The 1975. Charli was then relationship — and later married — 1975 drummer George Daniel. On “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Swift sang a few man — maybe Healy — who seemingly ghosted her (this shall be necessary later).
Could 2024
Days earlier than the discharge of her sixth studio album, Brat, Charli issued a “PSA” through TikTok the place she warned followers there have been no “diss tracks” on the LP. “They're actually nearly the way it's so difficult being an artist, particularly a feminine artist, the place you might be pitted towards your friends but additionally anticipated to be finest buddies with each single individual always, and in the event you're not, you're deemed a nasty feminist,” she defined. “And that, to me, is such an unrealistic expectation. So, yeah, these songs are sort of about how as a girl, as an artist, some days you'll be able to really feel on high of the world, some days you'll be able to really feel unbelievably insecure, different days you'll be able to really feel extremely aggressive. Typically you'll be able to really feel like literal trash. And it's actually emotional and it's difficult to take care of, and we're not supposed to speak about it, however these songs do discuss it. And I'll in all probability be chastised for it, however no matter, it's actuality.”
June 2024
Charli dropped Brat, which included the tune “Sympathy Is a Knife.” Many Charli followers theorized that the tune was about Swift due to the road, “Don't wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend's present / Fingers crossed behind my again, I hope they break up fast.”
The tune's refrain was about Charli feeling insecure round one other lady, presumably one other artist: “'Trigger I couldn't even be her if I attempted / I'm reverse, I'm on the opposite facet / I really feel all these emotions I can't management.”
After one among her first exhibits following Brat's launch, Charli admonished followers for allegedly chanting, “Taylor is useless,” throughout a gig in Brazil. “Can the individuals who do that please cease. On-line or at my exhibits,” she wrote through her Instagram Tales. “It's the reverse of what I would like and it disturbs me that anybody would suppose there's room for this on this group. I can't tolerate it.”
August 2024
Charli formally denied that “Sympathy Is a Knife” was about Swift, telling New York Journal that it was about her personal hang-ups. “That tune is about me and my emotions and my anxiousness and the way in which my mind creates narratives and tales in my head after I really feel insecure and the way I don't need to be in these conditions bodily after I really feel self-doubt,” she stated, hinting the tune was referencing the dimensions of the arenas the place The 1975 play. “Typically I'd look onstage and be like, ‘Oh, my God … I'm by no means going to play these rooms, ever.' That made me really feel jealous. I instructed Matty that. And George. They had been each like, ‘Shut up. What are you speaking about?'”
In the identical article, Swift praised Charli's talent as an artist, saying, “I've been blown away by Charli's melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Keep Away' in 2011. Her writing is surreal and ingenious, all the time. She simply takes a tune to locations you wouldn't count on it to go, and she or he's been doing it constantly for over a decade. I like to see arduous work like that repay.”
October 2024
Charli supplied a protection of Healy, who'd beforehand made headlines for mocking Ice Spice and consuming uncooked meat on stage. “He's like my brother now, you already know?” she instructed Apple Music. “And I hope he wouldn't thoughts me saying this however I've an limitless quantity of respect for him as a songwriter and him as an individual. However I generally need to strangle him.”
She went on to notice that she was a fan even earlier than she began relationship Daniel, saying, “Even earlier than being with George — years and years in the past — I've all the time been such a fan of their work. His pondering of the way in which every little thing is digested by way of their work, their paintings, their font, their movies, their every little thing … it's very, very holistic.”
October 2025
Swift launched The Lifetime of a Showgirl, that includes “Really Romantic” (the title of which may be a nod to Charli's Brat observe “Every little thing Is Romantic”). “I heard you name me boring Barbie when the coke's bought your mind / Excessive-fived my ex after which stated you're glad he ghosted me,” Swift sang within the first verse. “Wrote me a tune saying it makes you sick to see my face / Some folks is perhaps offended.”
Within the refrain, Swift hinted she was unbothered by the opposite lady's feedback, saying, “Nevertheless it's really candy / On a regular basis you've spent on me / It's truthfully wild / All the hassle you've put in / It's really romantic / I actually bought handy it to you / No man has ever beloved me such as you do.”
