Taylor Swift And Charli XCX History: What Went On Between Them After Diss Track Actually Romantic Is Released

In the run-up to the release of Taylor Swift’s new album The Life Of A Showgirl, fans were bracing themselves for songs about her relationship with Travis Kelce, life on the road on the Eras Tour or perhaps the new development that she’s successfully bought back the original masters to her first six studio albums.

What few could have anticipated, though, was that one of the most talked-about songs would be an alleged diss track aimed at fellow singer Charli XCX.

Taylor and Charli have something of a complicated history, but many casual fans listening to The Life Of A Showgirl might have been left pondering how exactly the Brat singer wound up catching strays.

With that in mind, here’s a quick guide to the ups and downs of Taylor and Charli’s relationship…

2015: Taylor Swift invites the ‘unbelievable’ Charli XCX to perform with her on her 1989 World Tour

The two singers’ paths first really crossed in 2014, when they posed for a photo together at the Jingle Bell Ball in December 2014.

Just under a year later, in October 2015, Taylor invited Charli to make a guest appearance on her 1989 tour in Toronto, Canada.

Hailing Charli as “someone that I love”, “one of the most in-demand artists of the moment”, “one of the greatest songwriters that we have going for us right now” and an “unbelievable” artist, the two then performed a duet of Boom Clap, which the British singer had released a single a year earlier.

It’s perhaps worth noting that this performance took place on 3 October, 10 years to the day before the release of Taylor’s 12th album The Life Of A Showgirl.

2017: Charli XCX is chosen to open for Taylor Swift on tour

Taylor had two opening acts on her next tour in support of her Reputation album, inviting Charli and fellow pop singer Camila Cabello to join her on the road.

During this time, Charli had already become known for her avant-garde material on releases like Vroom Vroom and Number 1 Angel, but mostly stuck to straightforward pop hits on her Reputation setlist, including the number one hit I Love It, the Iggy Azalea collab Fancy and the Sucker cuts Boom Clap and Break The Rules.

She and Camila also joined Taylor on stage every night for a rendition of Shake It Off.

2019: Charli XCX admits having mixed feelings about touring with Taylor Swift

Reflecting on being Taylor’s opening act two years later, Charli told Pitchfork that she was “really grateful that she asked me on that tour”, but, “as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to five-year-olds”.

2023: Charli XCX and Taylor Swift begin spending more time together as they are both dating members of The 1975

The summer of 2023 was a chaotic time for the Swifties, many of whom were stunned to discover that Taylor had begun dating The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, who at that time had become embroiled in a number of public controversies.

While she was dating Matty, Charli was also going out with The 1975 musician George Daniel. The pair have since tied the knot, while Taylor and Matty’s relationship didn’t last the summer, and she began going out with Travis Kelce soon after the break-up.

She did, however, appear to use the short-lived romance as the basis for much of her 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department, with songs including The Smallest Man Who Ever Loved, But Daddy I Love Him and the number one hit Fortnight appearing to have been inspired by this time in her life.

2024: Charli releases Sympathy Is A Knife, a song that appears to reference her complicated feelings towards Taylor Swift

On her seminal album Brat, Charli makes not-so-veiled references to Taylor on the song Sympathy Is A Knife.

While many misreported that Sympathy Is A Knife was a diss track, the song actually saw Charli singing about her own insecurities, which she appeared to suggest were exacerbated during the period that Taylor was dating Matty.

“This one girl taps my insecurities, don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling,” Charli sang on its opening verse, later adding on the chorus: “I couldn’t even be her if I tried I’m opposite, I’m on the other side.”

In more explicit nods to Taylor, Charli admitted to not wanting to “see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show”, and was keeping her “fingers crossed” that “they”, alluding to Taylor and Matty, “break up soon”, so these negative feelings would subside.

Charli later said in a TikTok video: “I’m seeing online that some people think there are diss tracks on Brat. I just wanted to come on here and clarify that there aren’t.

“The tracks in question aren’t 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, and if you’re not, you’re, like, deemed a bad feminist. And that, to me, is such an unrealistic expectation.

“So yeah, these songs are about 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, some days you can feel like literal trash, and it’s really emotional and complicated to deal with, and you’re not supposed to talk about it, but these songs do talk about it. And I’ll probably be chastised for that.”

2024: Taylor Swift sings Charli XCX’s praises as a songwriter

If Taylor harboured any bad feelings towards Charli over Sympathy Is A Knife, she certainly never voiced them.

During a New York magazine profile of Charli published last year, Taylor insisted: “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.”

The same New York piece saw Charli insisting: “People are gonna think what they want to think. 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 added that she was already feeling envious of The 1975’s success during that tour, claiming: “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?’.”

2024: Fan wars break out among the Swifties and Angels

Taylor and Charli themselves might have been determined to keep things amicable, but the same couldn’t be said for their fans.

Around the release of Charli’s Brat album, she had been on course to chart at number one in the UK, until Taylor unveiled a last-minute re-release of The Tortured Poets Department, which wound up topping the chart instead.

Charli’s fans seemingly took this to heart, with some going as far as chanting “Taylor Swift is dead” in Portuguese during a São Paulo DJ set, which the 360 singer condemned.

“Can the people who do this please stop,” she begged at the time. “Online or at my shows. 

“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.”

However, the fan war was exacerbated even further over the summer of 2024, when Charli teamed up with Billie Eilish (who has her owncomplicated history with Taylor, and was similarly blocked from the number one spot in the US by a Tortured Poets re-release) on a remix of the song Guess.

A new outro for the song was recorded, on which the pair laughed: “You wanna guess what me and Billie have been texting about? (You’ve been disrespectful). Still trying to guess the password to my Google Drive (Are you obsessed with me?).

“You wanna guess the address of the party we’re at (you really are not invited), you wanna guess if we’re serious about this song.”

Many fans began to wonder if this was intentional shade towards Taylor, though this was never confirmed to be the case.

2025: Taylor Swift leans into ‘Brat summer’ inspired by Charli XCX’s album of the same name

At the 2025 Grammys, Charli shut down the show with a performance inspired by her Brat album, during which Taylor was seen throwing shapes in the audience.

2025: Taylor Swift releases Actually Romantic, which many think is a diss track about Charli XCX

As soon as The Life Of A Showgirl was released, fans began to read between the lines on Actually Romantic, claiming the track threw some not-so-subtle shade Charli’s way.

“I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” Taylor sang in the song’s opening lyric. “[You] high-fived my ex and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me. [You] wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face.”

She later added: “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.”

Many of these lyrics point to Charli, in particular the “high-fived my ex” line, which could allude to the British star’s friendship with Matty Healy (who was recently a guest at her wedding to George Daniel, along with his fiancée Gabbriette and his famous mum, Denise Welch).

As for that “the coke’s got you brave” lyric, it’s important to state that while Charli has never indicated she’s a drug user in real life, she has alluded to drug use in her work, most notably on the song 365 (on which she sings about doing “a little key” and having “a little line”), while a special physical release of Brat was pressed on clear vinyl with “white powder” detail.

Whether or not these two can “work it out on the remix” remains to be seen, but we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for a response from either of them.

HuffPost UK has contacted Taylor Swift’s team for comment. A representative for Charli XCX had no comment.