Taylor Swift sings Charli XCX‘s praises in a Vulture profile on the Brat Summer founder. Swift praised Charli’s sixth studio album and her former tour-mate’s hard work.
Swift’s remarks come amid rumors of tension between her and the “Boom Clap” singer, fueled by the latter’s Brat song “Sympathy Is a Knife,” which some fans believe is about the former. “This one girl taps my insecurities,” Charli sings on the track before seemingly referencing Swift’s romance last year with The 1975’s Matty Healy: “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show.”
Though when asked for comment, Taylor has finally broken her silence and told the publication “I’ve been blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities since I first heard ‘Stay Away’ in 2011.” She continued, “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.”
Earlier this Summer, fans speculated Taylor purposefully blocked Charli’s album from reaching No.1 on the UK album charts. Following Brat‘s release, Charli’s latest album, Taylor Swift released six new variants of her Tortured Poets Department album with unique voice notes available only in the UK.
Taylor has been releasing album variants periodically since the April release of her album and has never addressed the theories of her doing so to block other artists. Though, the UK variants did secure Swift the No.1 spot over Brat.
Charli — who is engaged to the 1975’s George Daniel — touched on the song’s alleged pot stirring in her Vulture interview.
“People are gonna think what they want to think,” she said. “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.”
When asked whether she considered omitting the line about being backstage at Daniel’s show to make the song’s subject less “obvious,” she simply said “No.” “You do the silence game,” she then told the reporter. “But I know that well — where you go silent and want me to talk more. But I don’t care about it being awkward. We’ll sit in silence.”
In June, the “Von Dutch” artist called out concertgoers who began chanting “Taylor is dead” at Charli’s shows amid the alleged fued, writing on Instagram Stories, “can the people who do this please stop … it is the opposite of what i want and it disturbs me that anyone would think there is room for this in this community.”
Charli opened for Taylor Swift during her Reputation tour and was featured as a guest during her 1989 tour.
