'The Tortured Poets Department' seems to reference Swift's romances with Travis Kelce, Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce embrace at Coachella
Taylor Swift got a big hug from NFL boyfriend Travis Kelce during a show at Coachella. (Courtesy: @chrisgrotewold/LIFESTYLOGY/TMX)
Since Friday's release of Taylor Swift's latest album "The Tortured Poet's Department" and her surprise double album "The Tortured Poet's Department: The Anthology," Swifties have been quick to point out subtle nods to past relationships and traumas - including an ongoing feud with Kim Kardashian.
In Swift's track titled "thanK you aIMee," Swift sings about a "bronze, spray-tanned" mean girl at school that her mom wishes were "dead."
"All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F--- you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushing,'" she sings. "But I can’t forget the way you made me heal."
TAYLOR SWIFT'S SONGS REAPPEAR ON TIKTOK AHEAD OF POP STAR'S NEW ALBUM RELEASE DESPITE DISPUTE
Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian's feud goes back to 2016. (Getty Images)
While she doesn't directly name Kardashian, the track's title capitalizes three letters: K-I-M.
"I don’t think you’ve changed much/ And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues," Swift sings on the track. "And one day, your kid comes home singin’/ A song that only us two is gonna know is about you."
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The ongoing feud goes back to 2016 when the Skims creator’s then-husband Kanye West rapped about how he and Swift "might still have sex" because he "made that b---- famous."
Kardashian posted a clip of a recorded phone call between Swift and West discussing the lyrics that would appear in the rapper's upcoming track, "Famous." Swift claims she never approved of the lyrics; Kardashian said otherwise.
Kanye West refers to Swift as a "b----" in his song "Famous." (Getty)
The backlash took a toll on Swift's mental health after she was branded a "liar."
"A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience," she said in a 2019 interview with Vogue. "When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being. You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, ‘Kill yourself.'"
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"Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination. I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be part of, since 2009," she wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post.
Swift surprised fans by releasing a double album on Friday. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Swift addressed the scandal with multiple diss tracks on her "Reputation" album in 2017, from "Call It What You Want" to "Look What You Made Me Do."
After being named Time's Person of the year in 2023, Swift called the feud a "bleak" moment and claimed she fled to "a foreign country" where she "didn’t leave a rental house for a year."
"That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before," she recalled in her profile in Time. "I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year.
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"I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard."
More notably, the albums not only touch on her six-year relationship with ex Joe Alwyn, but her whirlwind romance with The 1975 musician Matty Healy.
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn dated for six years and kept their relationship extremely private. (Jackson Lee/GC Images)
"The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure," the pop icon wrote on Instagram in tandem with the album's release. "This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry."
On her opening track "Fortnight" - which features Post Malone - the singer describes a brief relationship that quickly turned sour.
Taylor Swift and Matty Healy briefly dated after her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn ended in 2023. (Getty Images)
"And no one here's to blame/ But what about your quiet treason?" she sings. "I took the miracle move-on-drug/ The effects were temporary/ And I love you, it's ruining my life."
On her track "Down Bad" - which seems to reference the aftermath of her breakup with Alwyn - Swfit sings, "Did you take all my old clothes just to leave me here naked and alone/ In a field in my same old town that somehow seems so hollow now … How dare you think it's romantic/ Leaving me safe and stranded."
Another track titled, "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart," Swift sings, "He said he'd love me all his life/ But that life was too short … He said he'd love me for all time/ But that time was quite short."
With the albums just being released, fans are still actively decoding lyrics - and sharing their thoughts on the subtle clues.
Taylor Swift celebrated with Travis Kelce on the field after his Super Bowl win. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Fans believe her song "The Alchemy" is about her most recent romance with NFL player Travis Kelce.
Swift sings, "So when I touch down, call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team." People believe "touch down" and "the team" are an obvious nod to football.
Towards the end of the song, Swift's lyrics seem to reference the Super Bowl champ. "Shirts off and your friends lift you up over their heads / Beer sticking to the floor / Cheers chanted 'cause they said there was no chance / Trying to be the greatest in the league / Where's the trophy? / He just comes running over to me."
Christina Dugan Ramirez is a freelance entertainment writer for Fox News Digital.
