THE RUNDOWN
- Charli XCX was asked to comment on Taylor Swift’s rumored diss song about her, “Actually Romantic,” and declined.
- The Brat singer instead revisited her response to questions about “Sympathy is a knife,” her track believed to be about Swift.
- Charli also discussed online rumors about her and why “fact-checking is dead.”
Less than two weeks after Taylor Swift’s rumored Charli XCX diss song “Actually Romantic” came out, Charli had her first chance to comment on it in an interview—and declined. In her new cover story for Vanity Fair, the Brat singer didn’t discuss Swift explicitly, but she did offer new remarks on the discourse around “Sympathy is a knife,” her song Swift allegedly responded to on The Life of a Showgirl.
Charli, who is now married to The 1975’s George Daniel, sang about being insecure around a woman connected to the band. At one point, she admits, “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show / Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quick.” Swift briefly dated The 1975’s lead singer, Matty Healy, in the summer of 2023.
Charli and Swift’s history goes much deeper, though, as Swift brought Charli out on the 1989 World Tour in 2015. Three years later, Charli opened for Swift on the Reputation Stadium Tour.
During her Vanity Fair discussion, Charli revisited how she responded to questions New York Magazine asked about “Sympathy is a knife” for her August 2024 cover story.
Charli had dismissed fan theories that the track was about Swift: “People are gonna think what they want to think,” she said. “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.”
When the reporter asked if she thought of leaving out the giveaway breakup lyric, Charli simply replied, “No.” The writer stayed quiet, and Charli called out what was happening: “You do the silence game. But I know that well—where you go silent and want me to talk more. But I don’t care about it being awkward. We’ll sit in silence.”
Vanity Fair’s writer Anna Peele noted that Charli was very warm during their interview, in contrast. Charli replied, “I think I’m just quite direct and blunt. I hate this phrase, but what you see is what you get with me. People think it’s all some kind of performance, but it’s not. I’m not sat here talking to you being the way that I am onstage. But I think there is a correlation in that there’s a messiness and a lack of perfection. It’s the combination of talking about those things whilst also embracing them and really struggling with them is what makes me whole. And I think that it makes me honest. You can vouch for me, I hope.”
Peele said she can’t fact-check Charli’s heart but believed the artist seemed sincere. Charli replied with a laugh, “Or I’m a psychopath.”
She also discussed the public’s misconceptions about her, saying, “If enough people say that it is true on the internet, it becomes the truth.”
She added, “You can’t [correct the record without making the rumor bigger]. Fact-checking is dead.”
Charli said she reads all the online coverage about her and revealed that she is both scared and fascinated by how publications like the Daily Mail decontextualize her words. “I have a big mouth, and I say shit and sometimes it gets me in trouble,” she admitted. “You seem lovely. But were you trying to get me on your side, so I would reveal more? I don’t know.”
Generally, when viewing the online discourse about her, Charli mused, “It’s fascinating to see how people ingest your personality and spit it back out—what people cling on to, what people miss. I’m always interested in, like, what does the casual viewer think? And they probably think I’m a girl who parties and does drugs and is a little bit bitchy.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.elle.com ’
