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It’s been a lively week (pun fully intended) for Taylor Swift, so allow us to provide you with a brief rundown of the latest developments before we dive into what it all means:
Things began on a dour note, as Taylor watched the Kansas City Chiefs lose a pivotal game (the team’s playoff hopes are rapidly fading) from her luxury box at GEHA Stadium at Arrowhead.
But hopefully, Taylor’s not letting Travis Kelce’s struggles on the field get her down too much during her birthday week.
Yes, Taylor will turn 36 on Saturday, and insiders say she’s already in celebration mode.
According to TMZ, the pop icon stepped out with longtime friend and fellow musician Este Haim in New York City on Tuesday night.
The outlet points out that on the same day that Taylor and Este wined and dined in the Meatpacking District, Blake Lively was just a few miles away, hosting an event for her Blake Brown haircare brand.
And yet, Blake was nowhere to be seen during the first night of Taylor’s birthday week celebration.
Many are taking this as a sign that the Taylor vs. Blake rivalry is alive and well. Of course, it might have just been a case of conflicting schedules.
Either way, it’s not the biggest Taylor-related controversy of the week.
On Tuesday, Rolling Stone ran a bizarre editorial alleging that the backlash resulting from Tay’s Life of a Showgirl album was the result of a “coordinated social media attack.”
The publication then blamed Swifties for being unknowingly complicit in the “attack” by reacting to rage bait.
“What Swift’s defenders didn’t realize, however, was that they were pushing back against a false narrative that had been seeded and amplified by a small network of inauthentic social accounts,” the magazine wrote, adding:
“Worse, they were helping to disseminate those bad-faith allegations by earnestly engaging with them.”
The outlet went on to assure readers that allegations of Taylor being a Nazi (ed. note: No serious person ever thought Taylor Swift was a Nazi.) were totally fabricated.
“This cluster of evidently coordinated accounts pushed the most inflammatory Swift content, including conspiracy theories about her supposed Nazi allusions, callouts for her theoretical MAGA ties, and posts that framed her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce as inherently conservative or ‘trad,’ with all of this framed as leftist critique,” the magazine alleged.
Apparently, it doesn’t count as taking the bait and spreading misinformation when Rolling Stone does it.
Anyway, the article is weird for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it tries to appeal to Swifties by essentially calling them a bunch of easily-duped dummies.
The alleged Blake diss, the weird Rolling Stone Nazi editorial, the Chiefs on-field struggles — none of these are major issues in and of themselves.
But 2025 has not been Taylor’s strongest year, public image-wise.
So if her fiance’s team misses the playoffs entirely around the same time that Taylor released an album that received mixed-to-negative reviews (even from fans), well, this one might enter the books as an off year for Taylor.
It’s weird to say that the most famous pop star on the planet might be in need of a comeback in 2026, but Taylor has set a pretty high bar for herself.
Taylor Swift Celebrates 36th Birthday, Snubs Blake Lively Amid Reports of … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.