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Taylor Swift has put the rumours of a feud between her and Charli XCX to bed after openly praising the English musician in a new profile. Providing a quote to New York magazine for a feature on XCX, Swift openly praised the 32-year-old’s artistry after fans suspected her of penning a diss track directed at The Tortured Poet Department singer on her sixth studio album, brat.
The song, titled “Sympathy is a knife”, chronicles XCX’s self-doubt and insecurities about her image after being “triggered” by an unnamed antagonist. XCX scattered clues at who the anonymous agitator could be, but it was the line “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back I hope they break up quick” that led netizens to assume she was singing about Swift.
(For the uninitiated XCX is engaged to The 1975 drummer George Daniel. His bandmate, frontman Matty Healy, dated Swift for a few months in 2023.) Now it appears the pair have both figuratively and potentially literally worked it out on the remix, as she and Lorde sing on “Girl So Confusing”.
“I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011,” Swift said. “Her writing is surreal and inventive, always,” she continued before adding, “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,” she finished.
For her part, XCX continued to deny that the single is aimed at anyone in particular. “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,” she divulged. XCX also confirmed that she has written a new version of the song, with fans predicting Swift’s inclusion in the piece could be an Easter Egg hinting at her featuring on the remix.
XCX opened for Swift on her Reputation tour in 2018. Following her stint, XCX tweeted that she felt as if she was “getting up onstage and waving to 5-year-olds,” which earned the ere of Swift’s fanbase. But with Swifties hoping that the artist will be releasing the “Taylor’s Version” recording of the album, it’s also theorised that XCX might collaborate on a song from “the vault”, which refers to tracks Swift wrote at the time of the album’s launch but never released. As XCX sang, “the internet would go crazy”.
