Taylor Swift praised Charli XCX in a new interview. Here's everything you need to know about their rumored feud. (2024)

• Taylor Swift recently praised Charli XCX in a new interview with New York Magazine.

• Rumors of a rift between the women were sparked this summer by Charli's song "Sympathy is a Knife."

• Swift and Charli have a decadelong history as friends, tourmates, and pop-star adversaries.

Taylor Swift reignited stan-war discourse this week by contributing to a New York Magazine cover story about Charli XCX, her previous tourmate and current contender on the pop charts.

"I've been blown away by Charli's melodic sensibilities since I first heard 'Stay Away' in 2011," Swift told the magazine. "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."

Swift's praise surprised some of Charli's fans, who've been circulating rumors of a feud between the two musicians since the early-summer release of "Brat," Charli's sixth studio album.

The album's third track, "Sympathy is a Knife," explores a complicated relationship with a fellow woman in the music industry, who triggers Charli's fears of inadequacy. In "Girl, so confusing" — another fan-favorite on "Brat," whose confirmed muse is Lorde — Charli admits this competitive relationship is largely one-sided, perhaps even imaginary.

"This one girl taps my insecurities / Don't know if it's real or if I'm spiraling," Charli sings in "Sympathy," adding that her fiancé, The 1975 drummer George Daniel, chalks it up to paranoia.

Many fans theorized that "Sympathy" was written about Swift, most likely during her short-lived relationship with Daniel's bandmate Matty Healy.

"Don't wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend's show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick," Charli sings.

She's also close friends with Healy's current fiancée, Gabbriette Bechtel, and gives her a shout-out in the album's opening track "360," essentially eliminating Bechtel as a "Sympathy" suspect.

Despite the speculation, Charli has made it clear that neither "Girl, so confusing" nor "Sympathy is a Knife" are diss tracks.

"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," she said in a since-deleted TikTok.

Charli reiterated this position during her interview with New York Magazine, declining to answer direct questions about Swift.

"People are gonna think what they want to think," she told the reporter. "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."

However, upon the release of "Brat," Charli's fans were still determined to defend her honor against perceived threats.

Taylor Nation, the social media arm of Swift's PR team, seemed to fuel the feud rumors by announcing six deluxe versions of her latest album, "The Tortured Poets Department," the same week that "Brat" was released. These variants were UK exclusives, only available to buy in Charli's home country.

The fresh boost of digital downloads pushed "The Tortured Poets Department" back to No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart for a sixth week, while "Brat" debuted at No. 2. As a result, Charli's fans accused Swift of blocking "Brat" from the top position on purpose.

Meanwhile, in the US, "Brat" debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, lagging far behind Swift's streaming numbers. By comparison, "The Tortured Poets Department" has logged 15 weeks at No. 1 in the US and counting.

But despite Charli's lower chart performance, "Brat" has dominated pop culture this summer with rave reviews, star-studded remixes (including "Girl, so confusing" with Lorde herself), and a cosign from Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.

Charli has indicated that "Brat Summer" is far from over, even teasing an updated version of "Sympathy is a Knife" in her New York Magazine profile, which she said she wrote "three or four weeks ago."

Could Swift and Charli work it out on the remix, as Charli did with Lorde? Here's everything you need to know about their history.

Swift brought Charli onstage in 2015 and recruited her as a tour opener in 2017

To Charli's earlier point, she has found herself pitted against Swift since at least 2014, when both women released new albums: "Sucker" and "1989," respectively.

In reviews and media coverage of her major-label debut, Charli was framed as "taking shots at pop's elite," aiming to "join the ranks of Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Iggy Azalea," who were in the genre's upper echelon (at the time). Both her artistry and sales figures were compared to Swift's, with NPR noting that "Sucker" faced a commercial disadvantage by arriving in the wake of a "massive Taylor Swift album." (Sound familiar?)

The following year, Charli performed a cover of Swift's hit song "Shake It Off" for BBC Radio's Live Lounge. Just a few months later, the two women squashed any lingering hints of tension when Charli made a surprise cameo during the 1989 World Tour.

Even though Charli had recently canceled her own tour dates, she joined Swift onstage in Toronto for a duet of "Boom Clap," Charli's biggest solo hit to date. Swift also shared a video of their performance on X (formerly Twitter), writing, "I LOVE YOU @charli_xcx !!!"

In 2018, Swift upped the anti by recruiting Charli (and Camila Cabello) as openers for the Reputation Stadium Tour.

"I can't wait to see you, can't wait to see them, really excited just about the whole thing in general," Swift told fans in a filmed announcement.

Throughout the tour's global run, Charli and Cabello would often join Swift onstage to perform "Shake It Off."

During an appearance on the British talk show "Sunday Brunch," Charli gushed about Swift as a kind person and "incredible businesswoman."

"She makes us feel, like, so welcome. It feels like a girl gang on tour together. It's really good," Charli said.

Charli angered Swifties by comparing the 'Reputation' tour attendees to children

In 2019, one year after the Reputation Stadium Tour wrapped up, Charli reflected on the experience during an interview with Pitchfork.

"I'm really grateful that [Taylor] asked me on that tour," Charli told the website. "But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up onstage and waving to 5-year-olds."

The comment was widely interpreted as Charli throwing shade at Swift and her fan base, prompting Charli to reiterate her gratitude in a statement shared on social media.

"In the printed version of this much wider conversation, my answers about this tour were boiled down into one kind of weird sentence," Charli wrote. "Leading up to that tour I'd been playing a tonne of 18+ club shows and so to be onstage in front of all ages was new to me and made me approach my performances with a whole new kind of energy."

Charli also said it was "brilliant" and "fun" to perform for Swift's audience, adding, "There is absolutely no shade and only love here."

Since the release of 'Brat,' Charli has condemned fans who start anti-Swift chants at her concerts

According to Billboard, "Brat" achieved the biggest debut week of Charli's career, though some fans were still disappointed when it succumbed to "Poets" on the charts.

When Charli hit the road for a string of "Brat" concerts and DJ sets, she was met with a wave of anti-Swift energy, including the chant "Taylor is dead" from a crowd at Club Zig in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

After videos of the chant circulated on social media, Charli told her fans to stop immediately.

"can the people who do this please stop. online or at my shows," she shared on her Instagram story on June 23, per Billboard. "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."

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