Taylor Swift compliments Charli XCX amid feud speculation over ‘Sympathy is a Knife’ lyrics

Taylor Swift is setting the record straight after Charli XCX's latest track, "Sympathy Is a Knife," sparked rumours of a feud between the two artists. 

The third track on Charli's recent album, Brat, includes lyrics that many fans speculated were about Swift, particularly lines reflecting on a woman's presence backstage at 1975 shows. 

Given that Swift was dating Matty Healy, the lead singer of the 1975, at the time the song was likely written, fans quickly connected the dots.

In a recent New York Magazine interview, Swift addressed these speculations directly. Instead of fueling the rumours, she praised Charli's talent, saying, "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."

Charli, on the other hand, chose not to delve into the specific inspiration behind "Sympathy Is a Knife." In the same interview, she stated, "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."

This isn’t the first time the two artists have been linked. Charli opened for Swift during her 2018 Reputation stadium tour, though she later described the experience as feeling like she was performing "for 5-year-olds" in a 2019 Pitchfork interview, a comment she later apologised for.