Taylor Swift and Charli XCX have long denied there’s any tension between them, but their rumored beef made headlines again with the release of Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.
After the album dropped in October 2025, fans immediately began speculating that track 7, “Actually Romantic,” is about Charli.
“What do i do as someone who is a superfan of both taylor swift and charli xcx,” tweeted one confused listener. Another X user added, “Streets are saying Taylor swift just dissed my wifey charli XCX.”
While “Actually Romantic” may be the first that some fans have ever heard of any alleged drama between Swift and Charli, their relationship actually dates back nearly a decade. Keep scrolling for the duo’s complete history:
May 2018
Charli joined Swift’s Reputation World Tour as an opening act alongside Camila Cabello. At the time, Charli was best known for the hits “Boom Clap” from the Fault in Our Stars soundtrack and the Icona Pop collaboration “I Love It.”
Fans Think Charli XCX References Taylor Swift and Matty Healy in New Song
August 2019
Months after the Reputation tour wrapped, Charli said she felt it was time she began headlining her own tours, but her comments were interpreted by some observers as shade at Swift and her fans. “I’m really grateful that [Taylor] asked me on that tour,” Charli told Pitchfork. “But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds. … I’ve done so much of [opening for other artists], and it really cemented my status as this underdog character, which I like now. But I need to just own my own f***ing shit finally.”
After backlash, Charli clarified that she meant “no shade” and had “only love” for Swift. “In the printed version of this much wider conversation my answers about this tour were boiled down into one kind of weird sentence,” she wrote via social media. “Leading up to that tour I’d been playing a [ton] of 18+ club shows and so to be on a stage in front of all ages was new to me and made me approach my performances with a whole new kind of energy — more so I talked about how it was brilliant opening for Taylor, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I was given and how much fun it was to perform to a new audience!”
Charli continued, “Any tour I’ve been on with any other artist as an opening act has always taught me so much. It’s always wonderful to watch other artists do their thing, own their stage and speak their language to their dedicated fan bases — and this was especially true for the reputation tour.”
April 2024
Swift released her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which included several songs that fans believed to be about her relationship with Matty Healy, who is the lead singer of The 1975. Charli was then dating — and later married — 1975 drummer George Daniel. On “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Swift sang about a man — perhaps Healy — who seemingly ghosted her (this will be important later).
Every Song About Matty Healy on Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’
May 2024
Days before the release of her sixth studio album, Brat, Charli issued a “PSA” via TikTok where she warned fans there were no “diss tracks” on the LP. “They’re really just about how it’s so complicated being an artist, especially a female artist, where you are pitted against your peers but also expected to be best friends with every single person constantly, and if you’re not, you’re deemed a bad feminist,” she explained. “And that, to me, is 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 be chastised for it, but whatever, it’s reality.”
June 2024
Charli dropped Brat, which included the song “Sympathy Is a Knife.” Many Charli fans theorized that the song was about Swift because of the line, “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick.”
The song’s chorus was about Charli feeling insecure around another woman, presumably another artist: “’Cause I couldn’t even be her if I tried / I’m opposite, I’m on the other side / I feel all these feelings I can’t control.”
After one of her first shows following Brat’s release, Charli admonished fans for allegedly chanting, “Taylor is dead,” during a gig in Brazil. “Can the people who do this please stop. Online or at my shows,” she wrote via her Instagram Stories. “It is the opposite of what I want and it disturbs me that anyone would think there is room for this in this community. I will not tolerate it.”
August 2024
Charli officially denied that “Sympathy Is a Knife” was about Swift, telling New York Magazine that it was about her own hang-ups. “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 said, hinting the song was referencing the size of the arenas where The 1975 play. “Sometimes I’d look onstage and be like, ‘Oh, my God … I’m never going to play these rooms, ever.’ That made me feel jealous. I told Matty that. And George. They were both like, ‘Shut up. What are you talking about?’”
In the same article, Swift praised Charli’s skill as an artist, saying, “I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011. 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 XCX and George Daniel Exchange Vows Again in Italy
October 2024
Charli offered a defense of Healy, who’d previously made headlines for mocking Ice Spice and eating raw meat on stage. “He’s like my brother now, you know?” she told Apple Music. “And I hope he wouldn’t mind me saying this but I have an endless amount of respect for him as a songwriter and him as a person. But I sometimes want to strangle him.”
She went on to note that she was a fan even before she started dating Daniel, saying, “Even before being with George — years and years ago — I’ve always been such a fan of their work. His thinking of the way everything is digested in terms of their work, their artwork, their font, their videos, their everything … it’s very, very holistic.”
October 2025
Swift released The Life of a Showgirl, featuring “Actually Romantic” (the title of which could also be a nod to Charli’s Brat track “Everything Is Romantic”). “I heard you call me boring Barbie when the coke’s got your brain / High-fived my ex and then said you’re glad he ghosted me,” Swift sang in the first verse. “Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face / Some people might be offended.”
In the chorus, Swift hinted she was unbothered by the other woman’s comments, saying, “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.”
One week after the album dropped, Charli made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live during Role Model’s performance of “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out.” Her T-shirt — bearing the logo of famed NYC nightclub Max’s Kansas City — led some viewers to wonder whether her choice of fashion was a subtle dig at Swift.
Days later, Charli officially declined to comment on the song in a cover story interview for Vanity Fair. Regarding her previous interview with New York Magazine about “Sympathy Is a Knife,” Charli said, “I think I’m just quite direct and blunt. I hate this phrase, but what you see is what you get with me. People think it’s all some kind of performance, but it’s not. I’m not sat here talking to you being the way that I am onstage. But I think there is a correlation in that there’s a messiness and a lack of perfection. It’s the combination of talking about those things whilst also embracing them and really struggling with them is what makes me whole. And I think that it makes me honest.”
