Charli XCX, born Charlotte Emma Aitchison, started her music career in 2008, creating an album that would gain traction on the website Myspace and eventually get her a record deal with Asylum Records in 2010. Following that, Charli released songs such as “I Like It”, “Fancy, and “Boom Clap”, which were major pop successes. In 2018, Taylor and Charli had their first professional interaction when Charli, along with Camilla Cabello, opened for Taylor’s Reputation tour. In an interview with PEOPLE, Charli regarded Taylor, stating that “She’s always been very kind to me and I’m very excited about the tour.” However, the tour was not without its own drama. In an interview with Pitchfork, Charli claimed that singing to Taylor’s age demographic felt like “waving to five-year-olds”. She later clarified on X that she meant no disrespect to Taylor by this comment and that the interview was taken out of context. She explained that opening for Taylor challenged her to broaden her performing skills and was a huge honor, ultimately putting this drama to rest. 

Following this, the artists continued to show no public animosity toward each other. In fact, their behavior showed quite the opposite. After rumors arose about Taylor purposefully dropping new editions of her album The Tortured Poets Department, Charli simultaneously released the deluxe edition of Brat in hopes of knocking her off the charts. Fans were outraged. At one of Charli’s concerts, passionate fans began chanting “Taylor is dead”, which was extremely ill-received by Charli. She addressed this behavior on X, posting “Can the people who do this please stop… It is the opposite of what I want and it disturbs me that anyone would think there is room for this in this community.” Later that same year, Taylor commented on Charli in an interview with Vulture. She had nothing but good things to say, claiming that she had been “blown away by Charli’s melodic sensibilities” and that her writing was “surreal and inventive.” If anything was brewing under the surface between the two musicians, they showed none of it to the public. 

While many of Taylor’s supporters quickly turned against Charli, a significant number of people criticized Taylor for punching down. Despite the commercial success of The Life of a Showgirl, Swift has been receiving some of her heaviest online backlash yet. Even some of her most dedicated fans have begun raising eyebrows at her recent work, feeling that she is cranking out content rather than real art. Taylor’s diss on Charli was the nail in the coffin for some fans and left them with a bad taste in their mouths. It is impossible to know whether or not Charli’s private behavior warranted the diss track but, for some fans, the whole situation felt a lot like bullying. “Sympathy is a Knife” has been defended as a remarkably vulnerable look into mental health and self-esteem, and some have wondered if Taylor is solely basing her diss track off of the lyrics of this song. Others have advocated for Swift, defending her right to express her own feelings in her art. Regardless of the varying opinions, it cannot be denied that the song has certainly gotten people talking.