Does Taylor Swift have bad blood with Charli XCX?
The "Blank Space" singer's fans seem to think so after listening to "Actually Romantic” from her new album The Life of a Showgirl, which is being interpreted as a diss track about the "Everything is romantic" singer.
"I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave," Taylor sings in the song's opening lines. "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."
Fans think that the lyrics are alluding to Charli's 2024 song "Sympathy Is a Knife," a song about the British hitmaker's insecurities that seemingly referenced Taylor's brief relationship with Matty Healy, a member of The 1975 along with Charli's now-husband George Daniel.
"Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show," she sings on the brat track. "Fingers crossed behind my back / I hope they break up real quick."
Taylor goes on to share more thoughts on her unnamed foe in the "Actually Romantic" chorus.
"I really got to hand it to you / No man has ever loved me like you do," she croons. "I didn’t think 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."
Elsewhere in the song, the 35-year-old speculates about how obsessed the person she's singing about is with her behind closed doors.
"How many times has your boyfriend said: ‘Why are we always talking about her?’" she sings. "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."
Naturally, listeners took to social media to share their theories about the Life of a Showgirl track.
“Actually romantic is definitely about charli xcx omggg," one person said on X, while another person wondered, "What happens if I'm a Charli and Taylor fan?"
E! News has reached out to Taylor and Charli for comment and has yet to hear back.
In a special "Track by Track Version" of The Life of a Showgirl for Amazon Music, though, Taylor did shed a bit of light on the story behind the song.
"'Actually Romantic' is a song about realizing that someone else has kind of had a one-sided adversarial relationship with you that you didn't know about," she explained. "And all of a sudden they start doing too much, and they start letting you know that, actually, you've been living in their head rent free and you had no idea."
"It's presenting itself as them sort of resenting or having a problem with you, but taking that and you just accepting that as love," Taylor went on, "and you just accepting it as attention and affection. How flattering that someone has made you such a big part of their reality and you didn't even think about this. It's actually pretty romantic if you really, really think about it."
However, it should be noted that the Grammy winners have previously denied any shade between them following multiple instances of fans sensing that they were feuding.
After "Sympathy Is a Knife" came out, Charli denied that it was a diss track at all.
"People are gonna think what they want to think," she told Vulture in August 2024. "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."
For that same piece, Taylor praised Charli's artistry, saying, “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."
Years earlier, after Charli opened for Taylor on the 2018 Reputation Tour, the "360" singer told Pitchfork, "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."
The 33-year-old later clarified her comments, saying that there was "no shade and only love" intended for Taylor.
"She’s one of the biggest artists of my generation," Charli told The Independent at the time, "and the Reputation tour was one of the biggest tours in history."
Keep reading for more The Life of a Showgirl Easter eggs...
1: "The Fate of Ophelia"
The opening song on Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl references the character Ophelia from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, who faces a tragic fate.
According to the song's lyrics, Taylor "might've drowned in the melancholy" if she hadn't been saved by her true love.
"I heard you calling / On the megaphone," Taylor sings. "You wanna see me all alone."
The lyrics appear to be a nod to Travis Kelce calling Taylor out on his New Heights podcast for not meeting him at her Eras Tour, which is how their romance began.
"I swore loyalty to me, myself and I," the lyrics continue. "Right before you lit my sky up."
Before meeting Travis, Taylor was fresh off a breakup from Matty Healy, having declared herself one of the "independent girlies" in July 2023.
But after Travis went to her concert in Kansas City that same month, sparks began to fly.
Now, Taylor's fiancé is even in on her Easter egg game, teasing "The Fate of Ophelia" lyrics on Instagram back in July. (Had some adventures this offseason," he captioned pics with Taylor, adding, "Kept it [100].")
How does that connect to Taylor's song? Well, as the lyrics go, "You dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia / Keep it one hundred."
2: "Elizabeth Taylor"
Taylor gives a nod to another famous showgirl, the late Elizabeth Taylor, in the second song on the album, even naming Elizabeth's favorite places, Paris' Plaza Athénée as well as Los Angeles' Musso & Frank's.
In the lyrics, Taylor also draws parallels between her and the Cleopatra actress. Like Taylor today, Elizabeth often made headlines for everything from her love life to her dazzling outfits.
But, as Taylor notes in her song, "Oftentimes it doesn't feel so glamorous to be me."
3: "Opalite"
In upbeat "Opalite," which Travis previously revealed as his favorite Showgirl song, Taylor references their love story.
After weathering her fair share of lightning strikes in relationships, now Taylor's sky is calm, it's opalite, with Travis.
"I had written down the word opalite because I learned that it's actually a manmade opal," she revealed on Capital radio. "Travis' birthstone is opal, so that I've always fixed on that, I've always loved that stone."
As for the meaning behind the synthetic glass gemstone? "I thought it was a cool metaphor that it's a manmade opal and happiness can also be manmade, too."
However, it's not without some bite, as Swifties think Taylor shaded Travis' ex Kayla Nicole in the lyrics by hinting the NFL player felt kind of like a prop in her social media pics.
"You couldn't understand it / Why you felt alone," she sings, seemingly to him. "You were in it for real / She was in her phone."
The song goes on, "You were just a pose / And don't we try to love love / And give it all we got / You finally left the table / And what a simple thought / You're starving 'til you're not."
4: "Father Figure"
While Taylor, Max Martin and Shellback are credited as Showgirl writers, the late George Michael receives a posthumous credit on "Father Figure" because the song includes an interpolation of George's 1987 track of the same name.
George's team even gave their stamp of approval, writing on Instagram Oct. 2, "Thank you @taylorswift for including George in such a special moment."
Fans speculate that the first half of the song is written from the perspective of Big Machine Records' Scott Borchetta, who sold Taylor's masters to Scooter Braun, before switching to Taylor's perspective on her reclaiming them.
Taylor herself admitted that the song was "written in character."
"That was a fun one to write," she said on BBC 1 Radio. "It's a very different way of using the idea of a father figure to king of talk about power, power structures, and the flipping of the power dynamics."
Plus, she's "pretty proud" of a specific NSFW line about making deals with the devil because "my d--k's bigger."
5: "Eldest Daughter"
We've reached track five on Showgirl, known to be the spot on an album that Taylor reserves for her most heartbreaking songs.
In "Eldest Daughter," Taylor, who Andrea Swift and Scott Swift welcomed before also becoming parents to Austin Swift, sings about navigating all of life's highs and lows, but always sticking with the ones she loves.
"Cause I'm not a bad bitch / And this isn't savage / And I'm never gonna let you down,” the lyrics note. “I'm never gonna leave you out / So many traitors / Smooth operators / But I'm never gonna break that vow."
6: "Ruin the Friendship"
Track six on Showgirl tells a story of regret over a romance that didn't quite get off the ground. The lyrics are filled with nostalgia, "Have fun, it's prom / Wilted corsage dangles from my wrist / Over his shoulder I catch a glimpse / And see...You looking at me / And it was not an invitation / But as the 50 Cent song played / Should've kissed you anyway."
Taylor's longtime best friend Abigail Anderson (of "Fifteen" fame) gets a nod in these heartbreaking lyrics of loss: "When I left school, I lost track of you / Abigail called me with the bad news / Goodbye, and we'll never know why."
Fans think the tragic song was written about her late school friend Jeff Lang, who died in 2010 and is believed to have inspired her prior song "Forever Winter."
"I didn't know / You were breakin' down / I'd fall to pieces on the floor / If you weren't around," she sings on the Red era song released from the vault in 2021. "Too young to know it gets better / I'll be summer sun for you forever / Forever winter if you go."
7: "Actually Romantic"
"Actually Romantic" is not actually about a romance, per se. Rather, it's a response to an unnamed person who, according to the lyrics, has spent a lot of time talking about Taylor.
"High-fived my ex and then you said you're glad he ghosted me," Taylor sings. "Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face / Some people might be offended / But it's actually sweet."
While Taylor rarely reveals who a song is written about, many fans on social media believe it was inspired by Charli XCX, who opened for Taylor on her Reputation Tour and is friends with Taylor's ex Matty and his fiancée Gabbriette Bechtel.
When Charli—who is married to Matty’s The 1975 bandmate George Daniel—released brat in June 2024, there was speculation that her song "Sympathy is a Knife" threw shade at Taylor. However, two months later, Taylor seemed to put rumors to rest by sharing her praise for Charli.
“I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011,” Taylor told New York magazine in an article published Aug. 26. “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."
Another easter egg it could be about Charli? The Spotify cover image shows Taylor holding an apple, the title of Charli's 2024 viral song.
E! News has reached out to reps for comment on the speculation and has not heard back.
8: "Wish List"
On the very top of Taylor's wish list? A forever with Travis. That includes starting a family.
"I just want you," she sings. "Have a couple kids / Got the whole block looking like you."
The artist even admitted it's one of her favorite tracks on the album.
"That was the one that made me know we were done with the record," she told Magic radio. "It's really emotional. It's a very accurate stance on where I'm at in life. So, it was a feeling of, 'We're done now.'"
9: "Wood"
According to Taylor, wishing on a star "never did me any good" when it came to love. But now, with Travis, she doesn't even need to knock on wood.
"Girls, I don't need to catch the bouquet," she notes in the lyrics, "to know a hard rock is on the way."
And she was right. Taylor and Travis announced their engagement in August 2025 after two years of dating.
The song—which contains many sexual innuendos—also includes a nod to New Heights, which Taylor credits for the start of their relationship.
10: "Cancelled!"
In track 10, Taylor is taking someone under her wing after they've been canceled, something she too has experienced.
"Come with me, when they see us they'll run," she advises. "Something wicked this way comes / Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like 'em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal."
Fans have speculated the track may nod to her controversial friendships with Brittany Mahomes or Blake Lively.
For the singer, she shared it's rooted in her empathy after experiencing her own public downfall, likely referring to the Kim Kardashian and Kanye West feud of 2016.
"Having had my own experiences with mass judgment and being at the center of many dramatic, scandalous moments in my career, where people were all weighing in at once or at least it felt like that," she told Amazon Music, "having had those experiences, it makes me move through the world a little bit differently."
Taylor continued, "And when other people go through it, you find yourself thinking about how they're probably gonna get smarter because of this. If they can get through it, if they can be tough enough, they can actually learn some things through this process."
"Cancelled!" is ultimately about "how I don't just naturally cast people aside just because other people decide they don't like them. I make my own decisions about people based on how they treat me within my life and their actions."
11: "Honey"
"Honey" is as sweet as it sounds. In the 11th track, Taylor sings about how Travis has been able to redefine her vocabulary. Instead of having bad memories tied to words like "honey" and "sweetheart," Taylor now thinks of Travis.
"Redefine all of those blues / When you say 'honey,'" Taylor croons. "Summertime spritz, pink skies / You can call me 'honey' if you want / Because I'm the one you want."
In fact, Travis did call Taylor "sweetie" during her debut appearance on New Heights in August.
12: "The Life of a Showgirl" (Featuring Sabrina Carpenter)
For her final act, Taylor teamed up with friend Sabrina Carpenter.
The lyrics tie together with "Elizabeth Taylor," giving a glimpse behind-the-scenes of a showgirl. While it may seem glamorous, there's always a price to pay, and the seasoned showgirl has to let the budding star know.
And the lyrics paint a picture, "She said, 'I'd sell my soul to have a taste of a magnificent life, that's all mine' / But that's not what showgirls get / They leave us for dead."
In the end, after learning about the life of a showgirl, they join together for a final bow, "That's our show / We love you so much, goodnight!"
"It's a song about meeting one of your idols and instead of being what you thought they would be, they warn you against following in their footsteps, because they just want to be honest with you about how hard this industry is," she told Magic radio. "And you do it anyway."