In a wide ranging interview with Rolling Stone magazine for a cover story, mega pop star, Taylor Swift, revealed that one of the new songs, “Bad Blood,” from her upcoming album 1989, is a diss track aimed at a fellow female superstar:
Swift’s focus on sisterhood cuts both ways, because when another woman crosses her, she’s equally fierce about hitting back. The angriest song on 1989 is called “Bad Blood,” and it’s about another female artist Swift declines to name. “For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not,” she says. “She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?'” Then last year, the other star crossed a line. “She did something so horrible,” Swift says. “I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”
(Pressed, Swift admits there might have been a personal element to the conflict. “But I don’t think there would be any personal problem if she weren’t competitive,” she says.)
Internet sleuths went right to work and discovered that pop star, Katy Perry, hired away a few of Taylor’s backup dancers for her own tour.
Dancer, Lockhart Brownlie, revealed in a 2013 interview, that Katy invited him, and 2 other dancers who were on the road with Taylor at the time, to join her “Prismatic” tour. All 3 had danced for Katy before, which is likely why she asked them. “Obviously we were with Katy for 2 1/2 years, she’s like family to us, so we were, like, `absolutely’,” Brownlie said.
Adding fuel to the rumor that Katy is the target of Taylor’s barbs, is this seemingly random tweet from the singer this morning.
Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing…
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) September 9, 2014
Whoa.
And, could the “personal element” to the conflict mentioned in the RS article be, that Taylor and the singer in question both dated musician, John Mayer? Rumor has it that Mayer is the subject of Taylor’s scathing “Dear John” song. Katy dated the musician last year.
I’m not a big fan of Taylor’s penchant for taking people apart in her songs, and then coyly hinting and winking about it in the press. She got a pass for the revenge track when she was a teen. But now, as a woman in her mid-twenties, it really comes across as juvenile. If Katy is reacting to Taylor’s RS interview revelation, hopefully she’ll take the high road now, and leave it be.
“My intent was not to create some gossip-fest,” Taylor insisted to RS, “I wanted people to apply it to a situation where they felt betrayed in their own lives.”
If that were true, she would have allowed the song to speak for itself without commenting on it.
