Taylor Swift on "Bad Blood" Being About Katy Perry: "It Doesn't Point to Any One Person"

It was important to show that losing friendships can be just as damaging to a person as losing a romantic relationship," she tells GQ

By Rebecca Macatee Oct 15, 2015 5:48 PMTags
Katy Perry, Taylor SwiftGetty Images

Although Taylor Swift has never specifically named her "Bad Blood" target, there's a common pop culture consensus that it could quite possibly be Katy Perry.

But Tay's not naming names, and she's sticking to her guns on that one! In fact, she tells GQ that the only reason she revealed any info about the friend-turned-foe in question was so as to not offend an ex-boyfriend she's still "on good terms with."

"You're in a Rolling Stone interview, and the writer says, 'Who is that song about? That sounds like a really intense moment from your life,'" she recalls, referring to this 2014 sit-down with the magazine. "And you sit there, and you know you're on good terms with your ex-boyfriend, and you don't want him—or his family—to think you're firing shots at him. So you say, 'That was about losing a friend.'"

"And that's basically all you say," Taylor tells GQ. "But then people cryptically tweet about what you meant." (Note: This might be a shady reference to Katy's "Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing" tweet that was posted shortly after Taylor's Rolling Stone interview.)

"I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that," adds Taylor. "I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn't want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship."

As GQ points out, no one ever speculated if "Bad Blood" was written about a guy. "But they would have," Taylor insists. "So I don't necessarily care who people think it's about. I just needed to divert them away from the easiest target."

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"Listen to the song," she continues. "It doesn't point to any one person or any one situation. But if you'd listened to my previous four albums, you would think this was about a guy who broke my heart. And nothing could be further from the truth. It was important to show that losing friendships can be just as damaging to a person as losing a romantic relationship."

On another note, it is even possible to steal Taylor Swift's thunder? Watch the video below.