People think Charli XCX is in the studio recording her response to Taylor Swift diss track

Taylor Swift dropped The Life of a Showgirl on Friday, and the reaction to her 12th album has been the widely accepted conclusion that it’s the worst she’s ever released. Truly terrible stuff, but more importantly than anything else the world has been hyper-fixated on the track Actually Romantic – which has been widely interpreted to be Taylor Swift dropping a Charli XCX diss track. This entire saga has been insanely wild to analyse and chew through, as the world has waited for Charli to respond. Now Charli XCX is teasing she’s in the studio and people think it’s because she’s recording her response to Taylor Swift and the diss track. Phew.

But here’s what we ACTUALLY know.

Actually Romantic lore, so far

So Actually Romantic instantly raised alarm bells because of its similarities in title to Everything is Romantic on last year’s Brat – but it’s actually a ‘response’ to Sympathy is a Knife. That latter track was widely interpreted to be about Charli XCX feeling insecure having to spend time around Taylor Swift. Swift was dating Matty Healy whilst Charli XCX was with George Daniels (the two are now married) – Healy and Daniels are both in The 1975.

Actually Romantic starts with a lyric saying its subject called Taylor a “boring Barbie when the coke’s got you brave”. Again, you don’t have to look far in Charli’s music to find references to ahem, bumpin’ that.

This was a big saga and Taylor’s official explanation of what the song is about did nothing to quell the rumours. Charli XCX never addressed what the song was about in her social posts over the weekend – but did share a snippet from the studio of new music.

Is Charli XCX releasing a response to Taylor Swift diss track?

Most Read

Here’s exactly how to do the AI homeless man prank that’s going around TikTok right now

Hideous videos literally show Bonnie Blue in the act on uni campus during gross Bang Bus tour

Bonnie Blue reveals exact number of Freshers she slept with on Bang Bus tour and I’m shook

<3 pic.twitter.com/sQxZVzikzm

— Charli (@charli_xcx) October 5, 2025

Apart from posting about her vibey time in Paris with pals, Charli XCX hasn’t responded to anything going on with Taylor Swift. But she then posted yesterday a video of the studio and is recording new music. But is it the response or something else? Twitter quickly decided she must be getting something out to respond but it might not actually be that.

Charli’s producer Finn Keane – who records as Easyfun – gave an interview about his work on an upcoming Charli XCX album. Keane said whilst speaking to Music News Hub “I think it’s going to be really exciting. We’ve been working on a few different things. We’re kind of deep in it now. I think it’s going to be amazing – I’m excited and inspired by the music we’re working on, it feels really different and fresh at the moment.”

So whilst there might be something on the new album that could be responding to Taylor Swift, I would personally predict the teaser Charli XCX posted is just an update on the progress of new music rather than an urgent response. We’ll have to wait and see. I am however very seated for the chaos.

For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.