Taylor Swift and Charli XCX have long denied there's any tension between them, but their rumored beef made headlines again with the release of Swift's 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. After the album dropped in October 2025, fans immediately began speculating that track 7, "Actually Romantic," is about Charli. "What do i do as someone who is a superfan of both taylor swift and charli xcx," tweeted one confused listener. Another X user added, "Streets are saying Taylor swift just dissed my wifey charli XCX." While "Actually Romantic" may be the first that some fans have ever heard of any alleged drama between Swift and Charli, their relationship actually dates back nearly a decade. Keep scrolling for the duo's complete history: May 2018 Charli joined Swift's Reputation World Tour as an opening act alongside Camila Cabello. At the time, Charli was best known for the hits "Boom Clap" from the Fault in Our Stars soundtrack and the Icona Pop collaboration "I Love It." Fans Think Charli XCX References Taylor Swift and Matty Healy in New Song August 2019 Months after the Reputation tour wrapped, Charli said she felt it was time she began headlining her own tours, but her comments were interpreted by some observers as shade at Swift and her fans. "I'm really grateful that [Taylor] asked me on that tour," Charli told Pitchfork. "But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds. ... I've done so much of [opening for other artists], and it really cemented my status as this underdog character, which I like now. But I need to just own my own f***ing shit finally." After backlash, Charli clarified that she meant "no shade" and had "only love" for Swift. "In the printed version of this much wider conversation my answers about this tour were boiled down into one kind of weird sentence," she wrote via social media. "Leading up to that tour I'd been playing a [ton] of 18+ club shows and so to be on a stage in front of all ages was new to me and made me approach my performances with a whole new kind of energy - more so I talked about how it was brilliant opening for Taylor, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I was given and how much fun it was to perform to a new audience!" Charli continued, "Any tour I've been on with any other artist as an opening act has always taught me so much. It's always wonderful to watch other artists do their thing, own their stage and speak their language to their dedicated fan bases - and this was especially true for the reputation tour." April 2024 Swift released her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which included several songs that fans believed to be about her relationship with Matty Healy, who is the lead singer of The 1975. Charli was then dating - and later married - 1975 drummer George Daniel. On "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived," Swift sang about a man - perhaps Healy - who seemingly ghosted her (this will be important later). Every Song About Matty Healy on Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' May 2024 Days before the release of her sixth studio album, Brat, Charli issued a "PSA" via TikTok where she warned fans there were no "diss tracks" on the LP. "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 deemed a bad feminist," she explained. "And that, to me, is such an unrealistic expectation. So, yeah, 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 for it, but whatever, it's reality." June 2024 Charli dropped Brat, which included the song "Sympathy Is a Knife." Many Charli fans theorized that the song was about Swift because of the line, "Don't wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend's show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick." The song's chorus was about Charli feeling insecure around another woman, presumably another artist: "'Cause I couldn't even be her if I tried / I'm opposite, I'm on the other side / I feel all these feelings I can't control." After one of her first shows following Brat's release, Charli admonished fans for allegedly chanting, "Taylor is dead," during a gig in Brazil. "Can the people who do this please stop. Online or at my shows," she wrote via her Instagram Stories. "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." August 2024 Charli officially denied that "Sympathy Is a Knife" was about Swift, telling New York Magazine that it wa