Rumors of a feud between musicians Charli XCX and Taylor Swift have been circulating since the former’s album. bratwas released earlier this summer.
In the title “Sympathy is a knife‘, Charli seems to be targeting Taylor with the line, “I don’t wanna see you backstage at my boyfriend’s show. Fingers crossed they break up quickly.”
“How does this relate to Taylor?” we hear you ask. At the time of writing brat, Taylor was dating 1975 frontman Matty Healy, who is in the band with Charli’s now fiancé George Daniel, so Charli would see her alleged nemesis backstage.
© GettyThe lyrics infuriated Taylor’s fans and they speculated that the whole song was about their idol, but Taylor quickly put any animosity to rest when she made a comment for Charli’s cover interview in vulture.
Taylor told the magazine about her fellow musician: “Ever since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011, I have been blown away by Charli’s melodic sense,” Taylor began.
“Her lyrics are always surreal and inventive. She just takes a song to places you wouldn’t expect it to go, and she’s done that consistently for over a decade. I love seeing hard work like this pay off.”
Taylor has also publicly praised Charli in the past, adding the same song to a breakup playlist in 2015.
© Instagram / @charli_xcxThe two musicians toured together a few years later in 2018, when Charli opened for Taylor’s “Reputation” stadium tour, but that performance made Charli decide she no longer wanted to open for her.
READ Taylor Swift’s world tours ranked by staggering earnings: From $66 million to $2.1 billion
“I’ve done so much of that and it’s really cemented my status as an outsider figure, which I like now,” she says. “But I finally have to own my own (swear word).”
Charli wrote about her experience on the tour on social media: “I am extremely grateful to Taylor for inviting me to open for her. She is one of the biggest artists of my generation and the Reputation tour was one of the biggest tours in history.”
© TAS2024Charli has Taylor’s response to “Sympathy is a knife‘, but since she has released remixes of several songs on the album (‘Guess’ with Billie Eilish and ‘Girls, so confusing‘ with Lorde, with whom she allegedly also had a feud), fans are keeping their fingers crossed that Charli and Taylor will do a remix of the brat Rail.
