If you have been on social media in the past month and you enjoy dance-pop music, you may have heard about the Charli XCX and Taylor Swift beef that resurfaced after the release of Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl. Their relationship began during Taylor’s Reputation Tour in 2018, when Charli, after years of playing 18+ clubs, opened for Taylor. After the tour, Charli told Variety Magazine, “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.” When Charli first said this, she faced massive backlash online from dedicated Swifties, who claimed she owed her career to Taylor.
In 2024, Charli XCX released her album BRAT, which became her first to achieve significant commercial success, topping charts worldwide and gaining widespread attention on social media. Before the album was released, Charli posted a video stating that none of the songs on BRAT are diss tracks, except for “Von Dutch.” One of the songs, “Sympathy is a Knife,” is about Charli’s own insecurities when she is around a girl who “taps [her] insecurities.” She never describes this girl beyond saying, “Don’t wanna see her backstage at [her] boyfriend’s show.” Because of this, people connected “Sympathy is a Knife” to Taylor, who dated Matty Healy, the lead singer of the band The 1975, and Charli’s husband’s bandmate.
On October 3rd, 2025, Taylor Swift released her album, The Life of a Showgirl, which features a song called “Actually Romantic,” a riff on the title of another BRAT song, “Everything is Romantic.” The song begins with the lyrics, “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” a jab at Charli, who is a known cocaine user. The song targets Charli’s insecurities and implies that the point and meaning of “Sympathy is a Knife” was to critique Swift. Taylor then sings, “How many times has your boyfriend said, ‘Why are we always talking ’bout her?’,” calling out Charli’s husband, George Daniel, and making assumptions about their relationship, because Swift claims to know what is “Actually Romantic.”
Swift has been accused of releasing different versions of the same songs to help them top the charts, and Charli has been a direct victim of the supposed chart-chasing. In 2024, Taylor released multiple different versions of The Tortured Poets Department in the UK, making Charli XCX’s BRAT narrowly miss the top spot on the chart. Although there is no direct evidence to suggest that Swift wanted to surpass Charli XCX in the charts, many fans speculated that Swift was bitter about Charli’s newfound commercial success.
Charli XCX and Taylor Swift’s recent drama raises the question of whether women support each other in one of the most challenging and public industries in the world. Conflict with other female artists is a common trend for Swift, who has also experienced drama with Katy Perry; notable girl-on-girl drama in the music industry includes Lady Gaga and Madonna, as well as Cher and Madonna. These are prime and public examples of women going against each other through songs. This poses the question: Are women in the music industry simply seeking financial gain and career opportunities to surpass their colleagues and competitors?
