Is Taylor Swift’s ‘Actually Romantic’ about Charli XCX? An investigation

According to Swifties, The Life of a Showgirl proves Taylor Swift did not miss the so-called “diss track” on last summer’s hit Charli XCX album, Brat.

I put diss track in quotes because the 33-year-old British singer put out a PSA to fans that none of the album’s songs (aside from ‘Von Dutch’) fit into that category. “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,” she said in a TikTok video in May 2024, adding, “That, to me is just like, such an unrealistic expectation.”

She continued, “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 about it, but whatever, it’s reality.”

Following the release of Brat, Swift praised Charli in a Vulture profile while making no mention of the track fuelling feud rumours, ‘Sympathy Is a Knife.’

Now, fans believe she was saving her thoughts for The Life of a Showgirl. On October 1, the lyrics to ‘Actually Romantic’ made their way online ahead of the album’s official release, and fans didn’t wait for confirmation before starting to connect the dots.