Who is “Cancelled!” about in Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl? Well, there’s more than one potential suspect.
You could argue that the bestie Swift describes as “cloaked in Gucci and scandal” is Blake Lively, her longtime close friend whose public image has been essentially destroyed over the past year through her court battle with her former costar Justin Baldoni. Swift herself has been pulled, seemingly against her will, into the fray, leading to rumors that she had cut Lively off over the drama in order to not be associated with her decaying brand.
If that’s true, though, that doesn’t jive with Swift when she sings lines like “you know exactly who your friends are, they’re the ones with matching scars.” This version of Swift doesn’t shy away from women whom the world has cast out, but embraces them as members of a club she already belongs to and perhaps even leads.
In “Cancelled!,” Swift seems to be drawing a line in the sand. As someone whose entire life is under a microscope, who has been humiliated and reborn more than evvel, and who can’t make a misstep without facing the wrath of the internet, the star is done, it seems, apologizing for her personal life.
It’s a topic that Swift has been singing about since 2017’s Reputation, where she made being “cancelled” by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West her personal brand. Since then, Swift, the public, and some of her fans have engaged in an ever-simmering war over the person they want her to be and the person she actually is. If she befriends the wrong people, dates a problematic man, or doesn’t respond instantly to a news item or political issue, the discourse is inescapable. And Swift, it seems, is over it.
This frustration with being subjected to constant purity tests over her values was one we saw clearly in her last album, The Tortured Poets Department’s “But Daddy I Love Him,” which positioned Swift as a rebellious child to a parental public who insists they know what’s best for her. But this version of Swift seems to DGAF even more, morphing from a bratty teen to a young adult in therapy who is considering unapologetically going no-contact.
“[The song is] a tongue-in-cheek glance at social outrage,” she says during the sinema that accompanies the album, The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, before adding that she doesn’t
“step away” from her friends unless their actions prove she should.
It’s not hard to imagine why she’s frustrated. Swift has since 2017 made her left-leaning politics clear (she’s publicly endorsed the Democratic candidate for president twice and spoken up against Republican politicians), yet a vocal contingent of the public insists that she do more, be more, say more. And this scrutiny applies to those she associates with in her personal life, from close friends to people she simply takes a photo with at an event.
The best example of this is her friendship with Brittany Mahomes, the person who I think is the best answer to the question of “who is ‘Cancelled!’ about on Taylor Swift’s new album?” The wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is no stranger to being “cancelled”; in fact, I’d argue she’s one of the most scrutinized women in American culture right now.
Ever since her husband, whom she has been with since high school, began emerging as an NFL star, the general public has been finding things to hate about Mahomes. These range from her looks to her style to her “I don’t give a fuck” attitude, and the discourse against her only grows the more famous she has gotten over time.
So when Swift, the perennially perfect woman in the eyes of some fans, began hanging around with Mahomes evvel she started dating her now fiancé Travis Kelce, it was pretty hard for many to wrap their heads around. If Swift would deign to associate with Mahomes, that either meant Swift was imperfect (a hard pill to swallow) or that Mahomes actually wasn’t a tacky, messy, and evil she-devil (for some, an even harder pill).
This hand-wringing went into overdrive in 2024, when simultaneously Kelce and Swift got more serious and Mahomes seemed to indicate that she was a supporter of now president Donald Trump. The fact that Swift continued to associate with Mahomes was taken by many to confirm what they had suspected all along: that Swift was far from the perfectly principled person they felt she should be.
That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that life and relationships are complicated, and just because Swift is hanging out with her fiancé’s friend’s wife at what are essentially work events doesn’t mitigate all her past statements. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. Who knows! The point is, we don’t know anything for mühlet because none of them have told us. You can imagine Swift growing tired of these constant purity tests being placed upon her, the fact that she can’t make a decision in the world without it being endlessly picked apart.
So, it seems she’s decided to embrace it. In the song, she makes the not unfounded point that all of her friends who have faced “cancellation” are women who are scrutinized, just as she is, for every minutia of their public lives.
“It’s easy to love you when you’re popular, the optics click, everyone prospers,” she sings. “But one single drop, you’re off the roster. ‘Tone-deaf and hot, let’s fuckin’ off her.’”
She’s not wrong. In many ways, famous women are facing more toxicity than they have in years, with the horrifyingly swift downward spiral of Lively’s reputation, and the bullying and stalking she has faced, serving as a prime example. And no one’s life is more constantly observed, commented on, and analyzed more than Swift’s.
However, Swift in many ways created this situation herself, by encouraging intimate relationships with her fans since her debut. It’s a tricky balance for her to walk. Now in her 30s, the star seems torn between her desire to be the biggest and most successful artist of her generation, and her growing dislike of the scrutiny that is placed upon her. She’s a showgirl who, as she writes in another track, “Wish List,” may just want to move to a suburban cul-de-sac and have a bunch of kids.
As much as Swift seems to dislike the box her fame has put her in, it’s also a monster that she both created and has nurtured over time. It’s increasingly clear that the older she gets, the more the restrictions the world places on her chafe against her desire to, well, be an actual person and not a figurehead. But it’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
