Taylor Swift released her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on Oct. 3, and one song has created discourse, leading to rumors that it may be written about another beloved pop icon.
The song that sparked a large online debate was “Actually Romantic,” an alleged diss track about fellow pop singer Charli xcx. In the summer of 2024, Charli released her chart-topping album “Brat,” which included the song “Sympathy is a knife,” a song that is popularly interpreted to be about Charli’s insecurities relative to Swift.
In “Actually Romantic”, Swift calls out an unnamed singer who had labeled her as “Boring Barbie” while intoxicated on cocaine. She goes on to say that this unnamed singer was happy with Swift’s ex for ghosting her. This led the internet to point fingers at Charli over the fact that her newlywed husband is George Daniel, drummer for English pop band “The 1975,” which is fronted by Swift’s most recent ex, Matty Healy.
Interpreting the lyrics from Charli’s song “Sympathy is a knife,” it is a clear assumption that these two songs follow an aligned story. Charli sings, “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick.” Swift may be hinting at this song in “Actually Romantic” when she claims that the singer “Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face.”
Providing track-by-track commentary for her new album “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift states, “‘Actually Romantic’ is a song about realizing that someone else has had a one-sided adversarial relationship with you, and they start letting you know that you’ve been living in their head rent-free. It’s presenting itself as them resenting you, but you are just accepting it as love and attention. It’s actually pretty romantic, if you really think about it.”
Although these two pop stars appear to have disagreements now, Swift and Charli started out as friends. In 2018, Swift invited Charli to open on the “Reputation” Stadium Tour, playing over 50 shows together in total. The two of them had even performed “Shake It Off” together on multiple dates. Prior to that, Charli had made a surprise appearance singing alongside Swift on her “1989” World Tour.
When did the friendship turn sour? Swift fans seem to think it started with a comment that Charli made in 2019 for a Pitchfork-featured story, “I’m really grateful that [Taylor] asked me on that tour. But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds.” Fans of Swift quickly took offense to this.
Despite the early signs of a potential feud, Swift had congratulated Charli on the lyricism of her album “Brat” in October of 2024. A press story for “Brat” was published in New York Magazine, which featured a quote from Swift, stating Charli’s “writing is surreal and inventive, always. 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.”
Following the promotional article for “Brat,” Swift was spotted four months later dancing at the 2025 Grammy Awards when Charli took the stage with a high-energy performance. The viral videos of Swift raving at Charli’s live show would let the internet think they were on good terms, right?
Regardless of this, Swift’s diss track “Actually Romantic” came as a shock to fans of both Charli and Swift, causing an online uproar. Fans are now left to wonder, was this song really a comeback to Charli’s “Sympathy is a knife”? Will Charli add more fuel to the fire? We’ll just have to wait and see.
