Taylor Swift knows All Too Well what it’s like to be under the judgmental eyes of the public, and so does her friend circle. With controversies surrounding celebrities like Blake Lively (who may or may not be friends with Swift at the moment), Selena Gomez, Sabrina Carpenter, and others, the singer’s friends have been canceled for one reason or another in the past.
Which brings us to her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, and the song titled CANCELLED!. Now, the question is, who exactly is Track No. 10 about? Is it Lively who pulled her into a legal mess? Or is it her latest collaborator, Carpenter? Before we get into the speculation, let’s take a look at what the song is about and what the soon-to-be-bride has said about it.
What Taylor Swift Has Said About CANCELLED!
In CANCELLED!, Taylor Swift is singing about those, presumably in her life, who have been victims of cancel culture for whatever reason. Despite the world’s opinion on them, the singer makes it clear that she is standing by their side.
She sings,
Did you girlboss too close to the sun?
Did they catch you having far too much fun?
Come with me, when they see us, they’ll run
Something wicked this way comes.
Good thing I like my friends cancelled
I like ’em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal
Like my whiskey sour, and poison thorny flowers
Welcome to my underworld where it gets quite dark
At least you know exactly who your friends are
They’re the ones with matching scars.
In the Amazon Music intro for the track, Swift explains what the song is truly about. She states that having been in the middle of “mass judgment” and at the center of “dramatic…scandalous moments” allows her to look at the world differently.
She added that because of her experience, whenever she sees someone close to her go through the same thing, she knows they’ll come out stronger and smarter. Swift continued that she isn’t going to “cast people aside” because of what the public is saying about them. Instead, she will come up with her own conclusions.
In her words,
I don’t naturally just cast people aside just because other people decide they don’t like them. I make my own decisions about people based on how they treat me within my life and their actions. And so this is a song about all those themes.
That being said, let’s finally take a look at the five women in Swift’s life who have been at the center of controversy and on the verge of being canceled, and why the song could be about them.
1. Blake Lively
Given everything that has been going on with Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively is an obvious addition to the list. Since her controversy is very recent, fans have obviously suspected that CANCELLED!
In the song, Swift sings, “I like ‘em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal…Like my whiskey sour, and poison thorny flowers.” Lively has been the face of Gucci in the past, and she also has a line of alcohol sours, Betty Booze. Moreover, the story of Lively getting cancelled began with It Ends with Us (2024), a movie surrounded by flowers.
Lively also stood by Swift when she was canceled in the past, thus her lyrics: “They stood by me before my exoneration, they believed I was innocent. So I’m not here for judgment.”
Moreover, it looks like Swift is making a sneaky Candace Owens reference in the song when she sings, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun?” What does this have to do with Owens and Lively? Well, in the political commentator’s video, The Taylor Swift Plot Thickens, she said of Lively, “In the future, when we reflect on what happened, it is going to come to be known as the girl bosses who flew too close to the sun.” Coincidence? Perhaps not.
2. Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina Carpenter has been growing exponentially in the last few years. She has opened for Swift’s Eras Tour, performed on Saturday Night Live, broken records left and right, and so much more. With her success came controversy.
First, she was canceled on social media for allegedly being in the middle of a love triangle with Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett. After rumors of Rodrigo and Bassett’s romance, he was spotted with Carpenter, kissing her forehead at a Black Lives Matter protest.
Later, Rodrigo dropped Driver’s License in which she sang, “And you’re probably with blonde girl who always made me doubt, she’s so much older than me.” Naturally, fans thought it was about Carpenter stealing Bassett from the Déjà Vu singer.
Swift sings in CANCELLED!, “Everyone’s got bodies in the attic or took somebody’s man, we’ll take you by the hand.”
Carpenter was also being canceled for having a bad influence on young girls, especially for the primary album cover of Man’s Best Friend, in which she is wearing a short black dress, kneeling on all fours beside a man’s legs while he holds her hair.
3. Sophie Turner
Sophie Turner and Swift’s friendship has been underrated, as they have been there for each other when it matters. Now, Turner may not have felt the heat as much as Lively or Carpenter, but her divorce from Joe Jonas sure got her some negative press.
After a messy divorce with Jonas that came after four years of marriage, the media seemed to turn on the Game of Thrones actress. The timeline also makes a lot of sense since Swift recorded the album during the European leg of the Eras Tour. This was around the time Turner revealed to Vogue that she had approached the Opalite singer for a place to stay after her divorce.
Swift sings, “Now they’ve broken you like they’ve broken me, but a shattered glass is a lot more sharp. And now you know who your friends are, we’re the ones with the matching scars.”
This can easily be linked to Turner’s relationship with Jonas shattering, who infamously broke up with Swift over a voicemail back in the early 2000s, hence the “matching scars.”
💬| Sophie Turner on Taylor Swift loaning her apartment to her and her children
"Taylor was an absolute hero to me this year, I’ve never been more grateful to anyone than I am for her […]. She really has a heart of gold." pic.twitter.com/NJ7HKXF7In
Then there’s also the minor detail that the song title is spelled C-A-N-C-E-L-L-E-D, with two Ls like in the United Kingdom, where Turner is from.
4. Brittany Mahomes
Swift grew closer to Brittany Mahomes, the wife of the Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. She was canceled on social media for her support of Donald Trump, as she liked some of his tweets and several pro-Trump tweets as well. On the other hand, Swift was endorsing Kamala Harris.
Trump welcomed Mahomes’ support with open arms, and he took to Truth Social to praise her and her husband:
Swift gets a lot of criticism for being friends with someone who supports MAGA, and CANCELLED! might be her way of telling her listeners that she doesn’t mind having someone in her life with opposing beliefs.
5. Selena Gomez
Selena Gomez has been canceled online multiple times for one reason or another, and she is one of Swift’s oldest and closest friends. She even gave a speech at her recent wedding with Benny Blanco.
First of all, Gomez was called out on social media for her comments on what’s happening between Israel and Palestine at the moment. She was canceled by pro-Palestine supporters who pledged to never buy a product from Rare Beauty.
She was also canceled for uploading a video on Instagram (via Variety), crying and speaking in support of those who were being deported by ICE agents. Moreover, she has been canceled more than once by Hailey Bieber fans for whatever reason.
All in all, it seems like CANCELLED! is just one big statement for all of her girls who have faced the public’s wrath. And it is her way of saying that only she decides who to be friends with and who not to.
Share your theories in the comments section below!
Stream The Life of a Showgirl on any major streaming platform.
