Taylor Swift’s record-breaking 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, continues to make headlines. And since its release, just days ago, all 12 tracks have gone viral.
It is new song, Cancelled!, that has undoubtedly made the most news, with fans convinced that the lyrics are about Swift’s longtime friend, Blake Lively.
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The Gossip Girl actress has faced major online backlash since the controversial release of It Ends With Us last summer. And with Swift becoming implicated in the ongoing legal battle between Lively and director, Justin Baldoni, there were reports that their friendship had ended.
However, Swifties believe Cancelled! to be the singer’s response, with the track appearing to be a song of support to her friend.
“Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?,” reads one lyric. “Did they catch you having far too much fun? Come with me, when they see us, they’ll run. Something wicked this way comes.”
“Good thing I like my friends cancelled,” the chorus later adds. “At least you know exactly who your friends are. They’re the ones with matching scars.”
This is something that Swift opened up about in her Official Release Party of a Showgirl film. And while she didn’t reference Lively, the Opalite singer did comment on cancel culture in general.
“[Being canceled is] something everyone goes through now,” Swift reflected. “It’s not just like a public figure type whatever, it’s like people gossiping about you in your town, negative comments you read on your Instagram. You can literally feel canceled by any sort of social backlash that you get.
“Anytime people get backlash, I tend to be the person they reach out to,” Swift later added. “So it’s very funny because it’s just sort of like, ‘Oh yeah, OK, somebody told me that you got in trouble for making that joke. Hey, yeah, how are you doing? It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. Do you want to go to lunch? Yeah, it’s fine.”
She continued: “I kind of wanted to write a song about how you can become wiser for it and you can become sharper, and I definitely judge people a lot less now that I’ve been kind of under the microscope for so long. I just judge people based on who I know them to be, their actions, not like some kind of general consensus where people are like, ‘Step away! They’re radioactive.’ I’m just not going to do that. I’m going to do that if somebody proves that they’re not a good person.”
We will continue to update this story.