The Charli XCX and Taylor Swift Beef Rumors, Explained

Are Charli XCX and Taylor Swift actually beefing? Or is this just the same old “catty women” narrative, recycled anew?

In a universe where pop music is synonymous with Taylor Swift, it’s impossible for a female artist to escape comparisons to another musician—or worse, rumors of bad blood between them. And though both of these women have tirelessly pushed back against idea of any kind of ill will between them, Swift’s newest album, The Life of a Showgirl, has renewed interest in an alleged conflict.

Here, Glamour breaks down the rumors of an alleged feud between Taylor Swift and Charli XCX, starting all the way back in 2018:

Charli XCX appears to shade Swifties after touring with Taylor Swift.In 2018, Charli XCX joined Taylor Swift as one of the opening acts for the latter’s Reputation tour. Speaking of the experience with Pitchfork a year later, Charli said, “As an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up onstage and waving to five-year-olds.”

After facing backlash from Swifties, Charli apologized, writing that her comments were taken out of context. “Leading up to that tour I’d been playing a ton of 18+ club shows and so to be on stage in front of all ages was new to me and made me approach my performances with a whole new kind of energy,” she explained in a Notes App apology tweet.

“As I say in the article and have said many times before, I am extremely grateful to Taylor for inviting me to open for her. She’s one of the biggest artists of my generation and the Reputation tour was one of the biggest tours in history,” Charli continued. “I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I was given and how much fun it was to perform to a new audience!”

Charli issues a PSA to fans ahead of the release of Brat.In March, two months before her album Brat dropped, Charli shared a “brat PSA” to TikTok in which she warns fans not to read too deeply into any of the lyrics.

Aside from “Von Dutch,” the Brat single she released in February, “The other tracks in question aren’t diss tracks,” Charli explained. “They’re really just about how it’s so complicated being an artist, especially a female artist, where you are pitted against your peers and also expected to be best friends with every single person constantly, when if you’re not, you’re deemed a bad feminist.

“That, to me is just like, such an unrealistic expectation. So yeah, these songs are kind of about how as a woman, as an artist, some days you can feel on top of the world, some days you can feel unbelievably insecure, other days you can feel highly competitive. Sometimes you can feel like literal trash. And it’s really emotional and it’s complicated to deal with, and we’re not supposed to talk about it, but these songs do talk about it. And I’ll probably chastised about it, but whatever, it’s reality.”

Charli quote-tweets Taylor Swift to promote her Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan.After Taylor Swift shared a positive review of The Tortured Poets Department, Charli quote-tweeted Swift, adding “everyone’s hype for the sweat tour!”

Fans suspect “Sympathy Is a Knife” is about Taylor Swift.“Sympathy Is a Knife,” the third track on Brat, is largely about feeling insecure and, in a way, talked down to by another woman. “This one girl taps my insecurities. / Don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling,” Charli sings. She also paints herself in opposition to the other woman, singing, “’Cause I couldn’t even be her if I tried. / I’m opposite; I’m on the other side.”

Online, fans immediately began speculating that the song is about Taylor Swift, largely due to the lyrics, “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show. / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick,” which appear to be a reference to Swift’s headline-making relationship with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Charli recently wed Healy’s bandmate, drummer George Daniel.

Though “I hope they break up quick” is not a flattering lyric, the rest of the song is fairly innocuous—a peek behind the curtain at Charli’s anxiety-riddled mind. Later she would explain that the 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.”

The Matty Healy of it allDays after the release of Brat on June 7, 2024, the model Gabriette—who also happens to be a close friend and former bandmate of Charli—shared a photo of an engagement ring from The 1975 frontman Matty Healy. “MARRYING THE 1975 IS VERY BRAT,” Gabriette wrote in green text over a photo of her black diamond ring.

Healy’s mother later confirmed the engagement during an appearance on the British talk show Loose Women.

Healy, of course, is largely believed to be the titular villain of Swift’s 2024 album, The Tortured Poets Department, which was released in April of 2024. Swift and Healy’s short-lived affair was the hottest story of spring-summer 2023, spun as a rebound relationship following Swift’s breakup with the British actor Joe Alwyn. It is believed that Gabriette and Healy began dating shortly after his breakup from Swift.

Given Charli’s “I hope they break up” lyric and the fact that Healy moved on with one of her dear friends, Swifties were left with a sour taste in their mouths following the engagement announcement. However, there’s no evidence of any foul play on Charli’s, Healy’s, or Gabriette’s part.

Charli shuts down anti-Taylor chants at her shows: “I will not tolerate it.”On June 23, Charli condemned a video of some of her Brazilian fans chanting “Death to Taylor” in Portuguese at one of her shows.

“Can the people who do this please stop,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “Online or at my shows. It is the opposite of what I want and it disturbs me that anyone would think there is room for this in this community.”

Taylor Swift praises Charli XCX in a New York Magazine profile of the Brat pop star.On August 26, New York Magazine published a Charli XCX profile. In it, the musician declines to answer any questions about her relationship with Swift, especially in light of the fan speculation regarding “Sympathy Is a Knife.”

However, Swift sends a message that unmistakably puts the rumors to bed.

“I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011,” she told the publication. “Her 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.”

Charli releases a remix of “Sympathy Is a Knife” featuring…Ariana Grande.In the same New York Magazine profile, Charli hinted that she may be releasing a remix to the Brat track that has stoked so much of the Charli-versus-Taylor fire. “I wrote this three or four weeks ago, about this idea of, like, you have to fall–if you’re deemed to be even in the slightest way on top, you have to fall,” she said. “I’m not a fucking idiot. I know how shit works.”

Charli did release the remix, however the new song featured Ariana Grande, not Swift.

Taylor Swift fuels feud rumors with the track “Actually Romantic,” from her album The Life of a Showgirl.Even through the most generous lens, it’s hard not to view “Actually Romantic” as anything other than a diss track, from the name of the song—which appears to be a response to Charli’s 2024 Brat track, “Everything Is Romantic”—to the searing lyrics.

The song opens with a scathing read of an artist who “wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face,” which could be interpreted as a call out to Charli’s track, “Sympathy Is a Knife.” This and several other thinly veiled references point to the artist being Charli, or at least a lightly fictionalized version of her. Immediately, Swift calls out this artist’s coke habit and references their connection to her “ex;” Charli has been fairly explicit about her drug use, and is married to Matty Healy’s bandmate, George Daniel.

Swift then spins a tale about the artist being obsessed with her, which Swift finds non-threatening (“It’s precious, adorable/ Like a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse”) and also a bit of a turn-on, in a sort of a perverse way (“It sounded nasty but it feels like you’re flirting with me…It’s kind of making me wet”).

The tone of the song may be nonchalant, if condescending, but it’s also peppered with stinging digs—like the reference to coke as well as the artist’s boyfriend, whom she implies finds the artist a bit hysterically fixated on Swift—that make it clear to the listener that Swift’s got a bone to pick.

We’d be remiss not to include a disclaimer here acknowledging that song lyrics are not statements of record. Swift is an entertainer, a showgirl, and sometimes events and feelings are embellished for dramatic effect!

Read the “Actually Romantic” lyrics below:

I heard you call me ‘boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave/ High-fived my ex and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me/ Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face/ Some people might be offended

But it’s actually sweet/ All the time you’ve spent on me/ It’s honestly wild/ All the effort you’ve put in/ It’s actually romantic/ I really got to hand it to you/ No man has ever loved me like you do

Hadn’t thought of you in a long time/ But you keep sending me funny valentines/ And I know you think it comes off vicious/ But it’s precious, adorable/ Like a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse/ That’s how much it hurts/ How many times has your boyfriend said/ “Why are we always talking about her?”

It’s actually sweet/ All the time you’ve spent on me/ It’s honestly wild/ All the effort you’ve put in/ It’s actually romantic/ I really got to hand it to you/ No man has ever loved me like you do

You think I’m tacky, baby?/ Stop talking dirty to me/ It sounded nasty but it feels like you’re flirting with me/ I mind my business, God’s my witness that I don’t provoke it/ It’s kind of making me wet

Cause it’s actually sweet/ All the time you’ve spent on me/ It’s honestly lovely/ All the effort you’ve put in/ It’s actually romantic/ Really got to hand it to you/ No man has ever loved me like you do/ You’ve just given me so much __ attention!/ It’s actually romantic/ It’s so romantic

This post will be updated.