Current Events, Pop-Culture, & Politics from a PR Perspective: Taylor Swift vs Rumors

The power of a statement: Taylor Swift vs. Rumors

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are likely aware that Taylor Swift has had a wildly successful year. From a record-breaking stadium tour, concert film, a brand new album, and the re-release of her albums Speak Now and 1989 in a years-long effort to take ownership of her masters, she is dominating the streaming charts and the culture in general. I will not even mention a certain football player from Kansas City.

In late November, Spotify, the largest music streaming platform in the world, crowned Swift its top global artist, prompting her to release a vault track from her latest album, Midnights, in celebration. The song, titled, “You’re Losing Me,” alludes to trouble in a relationship.

Swift fans love nothing more than to dig into her lyrics, building a timeline of her love life, which is a frequent topic in her lyricism. In “You’re Losing Me” she sings, “I wouldn’t marry me either…a pathological people pleaser.” Fans assumed this lyric, and other ones labeling the relationship as “sick”  were written shortly before Swift broke off her relationship of seven years with British actor Joe Alwyn in early 2023.

After the vault track dropped, those in Swift’s inner circle hinted that the public view of Taylor and Joe Alwyn’s relationship was more positive than it was in reality. They posted champagne emojis at the songs’ release and publicly unfollowed Alwyn on social media.

Choosing chaos, music producer and Swift-bff Jack Antonoff revealed in an Instagram story that “You’re Losing Me” was written way back in 2021…causing fans to look at the album and all of its songs differently. Could Midnights be a break-up album?

Antonoff’s post was a bombshell to Swift fans and spectators, causing rumors to swirl online. Rumors are nothing new to Taylor Swift, but a line was crossed when the popular Instagram Gossip account, Deuxmoi made multiple claims, one insisting that Joe and Taylor had a secret marriage ceremony. This implied that the scathing “I wouldn’t marry me either,” line appears to be Taylor crying wolf.

This struck a chord. Taylor has faced accusations of lying before, publicly sparring in the past with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in 2016. In the December 2023 edition of TIME Magazine, Taylor recalled the scandal, “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.” Given the impact these events took to her reputation and career at the time, it doesn’t surprise me that Swift would want to get ahead of the narrative being crafted by Deuxmoi.

The power of a statement  

Enter Tree Paine, Swift’s publicist since 2014. Paine is described as a “quiet but ferocious PR pitbull,” and has been with Swift through many prolific moments throughout her career.

Deuxmoi is broadcasting the idea that Taylor has been dishonest with her fans about a marriage between her and Joe Alwyn to its 2 million followers. Freedom of speech, as well as several telecommunications laws, make it nearly impossible to bring legal action against these types of gossip pages that spread hearsay and false information. Therefore, the most powerful tool a public figure has in a circumstance like this is PR, and Tree Paine masterfully used a statement to derail the rumors - below is a timeline of events:

1. Deuxmoi “confirms” that Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift were married in a secret ceremony.
2. Fans grab on, spreading the rumor everywhere as Deuxmoi is a semi-trusted source in popular culture.
3. Taylor, Tree, and the team strategize, with the goals of preserving her relationship with her fans and discrediting Deuxmoi as a news source.
4. The approach? Tree Paine personally posts a statement on behalf of Taylor, something she has not done since the 2016 Kardashian-West drama (see below).
5. Public focus immediately shifts to how damaging Deuxmoi’s content can be, and the account owner is backed into publicly apologizing to Swift.

The result

Through the statement, Tree Paine effectively shut down the narrative that Deuxmoi was insisting to be true; while also setting the expectation for Deuxmoi that they are watching, and will not tolerate any fabrication that puts Taylor’s character into question.

PR lessons learned

In public relations, a statement is all about timing, platform, and source, and if used effectively, the ultimate PR tool.

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