Is Taylor Swift’s “Actually Romantic” about Charli XCX?

"The Life of a Showgirl" Album Art

Magda Kanecka | October 2025

 Among the release of Taylor Swift’s 12^th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” listeners were quick to point out the not-so-hidden meaning behind track seven, “Actually Romantic,” with many stating the song is about a fellow pop star, Charli XCX.

The early line in Swift’s song, “High-fived my ex and then you said you’re glad he ghosted me,” refers to the brief relationship Taylor had with The 1975’s lead singer, Matty Healy, in 2023.

Charli XCX recently got married to another The 1975 band member, George Daniel, with whom she has been since 2022. The two pop sensations, both once dating guys from the same band, appear not to have gotten along, despite Charli XCX supporting Taylor’s Reputation Tour lineup in 2018. Admittedly, this took place years before the alleged feud – but social media users have been quick to point this out.

The feud appears to have inflated when, in the summer of 2024, an era since unofficially labelled as ‘BRAT Summer,’ both pop girls released their newest albums. As “BRAT” topped worldwide charts, especially in the West, Taylor Swift began releasing an increased number of alternative versions of album covers, conveniently on the weeks during which “BRAT” was charting the highest and was set to obtain Number 1s. Coincidence or not, Charli’s fans were rightfully upset, especially given how large Taylor Swift’s fanbase is.

To this day, Taylor’s 2024 album “The Tortured Poet’s Department” has 37 different album variants, and regardless of the opinion you may hold, I am still left wondering what about these versions makes them so different that you need 37 of them.

Some have speculated the title of the song itself, “Actually Romantic,” is a dig a Charli XCX’s track “Everything Is Romantic” from her 2024 hit album, “BRAT.” The further line in Swift’s song, “Wrote me a song saying it makes you sick to see my face,” as fans have pointed out, is parallel to Charli’s line “I don’t wanna share this space / I don’t wanna force a smile.”

Some even say Charli was against Taylor’s short-lived relationship with Matty Healy, referencing the “Sympathy is a Knife” lyric “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick.” The truth and the extent of this, we will likely never know. 

The first line of the brand-new song released by Swift, “I heard you call me ‘Boring Barbie’ when the coke’s got you brave,” has been speculated to refer to Charli XCX, who has made several references to the drug throughout her work, including the release of a white powder-filled vinyl variant of the deluxe version of her album “BRAT.”

Opinions of both fanbases appear to be split, with one fan saying: “Unfortunately, the biggest problem for me with this song is just that it’s nowhere near as good as ‘Sympathy is a Knife’.”

Others with an alternative view have pointed out that Taylor Swift has never been a ‘girl’s girl,’ and that she completely misunderstood the meaning of Charli’s “Sympathy is a Knife.”

Likewise, others appear to love the song, taking its meaning as a diss track to everyone who “spends time obsessing over Taylor even though they ‘hate her’.”

Taylor Swift has stated in a track-by-track breakdown for Amazon Music: “It is a song about realising that someone else has kind of had a one-sided, adversarial relationship with you that you didn’t know about. And all of a sudden they start doing too much and they start letting you know that actually, you’ve been living in their head rent-free and you had no idea.”

As public and fan opinions remain split, both pop stars are silent regarding an official response to the feud.