Taylor Swift Photo Reignites Olivia Rodrigo Drama
A photo of Taylor Swift posing with Olivia Rodrigo's alleged nemesis has sparked a fierce debate online.
From people saying that it's sexist to pit women against each other to telling others to stop being conspiratorial, it all stemmed from a seemingly innocuous pic from Swift's 34th birthday party.
The "Bad Blood" singer posed with her arm around former Disney star, Sabrina Carpenter, at her party in a club in New York City.
Carpenter was rumored to be the other girl mentioned in Rodrigo's breakout hit, "Driver's License." Carpenter began dating Rodrigo's ex, Joshua Bassett, who is thought to be the inspiration behind the heartbreak ballad.
One person re-shared the image of Swift and Carpenter to X, formerly Twitter, with the caption "Notice how-," seemingly referring to Rodrigo's noticeable absence from the photo and party. Especially considering Swift had acted as a kind of mentor to Rodrigo in her early solo career.
The viral post, which had 2 million views at the time of writing, sparked an intense debate on X, with many slamming the original tweet.
"How Taylor hangs out with women who are not her competition? Yeah," replied one person.
Another wrote: "Notice how we don't have to put to successful women against each other because Taylor sabrina and Olivia are all living perfectly fine lives."
A third commented: "-the talented, prettier, more successful, Olivia Rodrigo wasn't invited? Yes let's keep it that way‼️"
One person on Reddit even asserted that: "Taylor Swift is using Sabrina Carpenter as a pawn to indirectly sabotage Olivia Rodrigo's career."
Newsweek contacted Swift's representatives by email for comment.
Theories online suggest that despite starting as vocal admirers of each other's work, Swift and Rodrigo have experienced conflict over the past couple of years.
Some of it allegedly stems from Rodrigo's 2021 album, Sour, which was released when she was 18 years old.
Swift and her songwriting partner, Jack Antonoff, were retroactively given songwriting credits on the Sour track, "Deja Vu" after Rodrigo admitted she was inspired by Swift's "Cruel Summer" song.
"We wanted to write a bridge," Rodrigo said in a video for Rolling Stone. "I wanted it to be really high-energy, 'cause the rest of the song is so serene and eerily calm. But I wanted the last bridge to go crazy and I love 'Cruel Summer'; it's one of my favorite songs ever. I love the yell-y vocals in it—like, the harmonized yells that she does. I feel like they're super electric and moving, and so I wanted to do something like that."
But Rodrigo has also credited Swift and Antonoff as songwriters on "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back," seemingly without any drama.
"We interpolated 'New Year's Day,' which is Taylor's song from Reputation. I came up with the '1 Step Forward' concept and I sort of wrote a verse and a chorus," Rodrigo has said as per Teen Vogue.
But Rodrigo's biggest copyright headache for the Sour album came at the expense of Swift's close friend, and Paramore front woman, Hayley Williams, and former Paramore guitarist Josh Farro.
Rodrigo had to give up 50 percent of royalties for one of her biggest songs, "Good 4 U," after they complained it sounded a lot like their song, "Misery Business." They were also retroactively named as co-songwriters of the track.
Swift may have referred to Rodrigo in a song for The Lovers' Journal album called "Nothin' New," according to fan theories.
""I know someday I'm gonna meet her, it's a fever dream / The kind of radiance you only have at seventeen / She'll know the way and then she'll say she got the map from me / I'll say I'm happy for her, then I'll cry myself to sleep," Swift sings.
But then some people think Rodrigo took a swipe at Swift in her sophomore album, Guts, especially with the song "Vampire," according to Glamour magazine.
"I was very surprised when people thought that," Rodrigo said in an interview with U.K. newspaper The Guardian.
When directly asked about her current relationship with Swift, Rodrigo denied any bad blood between the pair.
"I don't have beef with anyone…I'm very chill. I keep to myself. I have my four friends and my mom, and that's really the only people I talk to, ever. There's nothing to say…There's so many Twitter conspiracy theories. I only look at alien-conspiracy theories," she told Rolling Stone in September.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
