| "Cancelled!" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Taylor Swift | |
| from the album The Life of a Showgirl | |
| Released | October 3, 2025 |
| Studio |
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| Length | 3:31 |
| Label | Republic |
| Songwriters |
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| Lyric video | |
| "Cancelled!" on YouTube | |
"Cancelled!" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl . It was written and produced by Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. The song is said to be about Swift's friendship with American actress Blake Lively, challenging cancel culture and expressing solidarity with Lively amid public adversity.
On August 13, 2025, Taylor Swift announced her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl , during an episode of New Heights , a sports podcast co-hosted by her then-boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason. [1] "Cancelled!" was also announced that day as the tenth track on the album. [2]
The song's title is inspired by cancel culture. Swift has been a target of cancel culture and criticism as a celebrity, and she perceived messages of cancel culture as telling her to "kill herself" and having "millions of people hate you very loudly". [3] Swift called "Cancelled!" a "tongue in cheek glimpse at social outrage that everybody goes through now". [4] She described how one can "literally feel canceled by any sort of social backlash" and described that, upon writing the song, she wanted to write about "how one can become wiser" and "become sharper" upon facing social backlash. [4] [5]
In early 2025, reports emerged of Swift's relationship with Blake Lively weakening when Swift was subpoenaed during Lively's legal battle with actor Justin Baldoni. [6] Although the subpoena was later dropped, the incident led to media reports suggesting a rift between Swift and Lively. [7] Following the announcement of The Life of a Showgirl's tracklist, fans speculated that "Cancelled!" might be a diss track aimed at Lively. Upon its release, however, the song's lyrics appeared positive about its subject and her tarnished public image, rather than a critique of Lively. [8] [9] [10]
Several critics thought that "Cancelled!" was similar to Swift's sixth studio album, Reputation (2017), drawing particular comparison to the similarly themed track "Look What You Made Me Do". [11] [12] [13] John Wohlmacher of Beats Per Minute felt that the production was "oddly derivative" of Lorde's song "Yellow Flicker Beat" (2014). [14]
Some critics praised the song's theme and production. Caitlin Robson, writing for Indy100 , believed that the track showcased how Swift "has gotten a lot better at standing up and defending herself". [11] Pallabi Bose from Prestige described the song as "crisp, snappy, and very much Reputation coded." [12] Collider 's Isabella Soares picked "Cancelled!" as the album's second-best track, deeming it one of Swift's "boldest tracks" with a dark tone and "edgy lyricism", save for the "girlboss too close to the sun" line. [15] Screen Rant 's Gina Wurtz wrote that the song highlighted Swift's "wicked sense of humor". [16] Matthew Dwyer from PopMatters described "Cancelled!" as "an eerie and arresting takedown of the celebrity industrial complex", [17] while Wren Graves of Consequence considered it "foot-stomper with playful lyrics that sound better than they read." [18]
Other reviewers took issue with the song's lyrics and narrative, particularly the line "Did you girl-boss too close to the sun?" [17] [14] [19] India Block of The London Standard deemed the song "very fun musically", but criticized the lyrics as "a car crash of outdated millennial cringe". [19] Pitchfork 's Anna Gaca called it "a swagless 'Look What You Made Me Do'", [13] while Beats Per Minute's Wohlmacher thought that it lacked the "manic, desperate, drunken energy" of Swift's 2017 song "Don't Blame Me". The latter deemed the lyrics of the refrain "rather descriptive and strange for the biggest and most beloved pop star of our era". [14] Exclaim! 's Megan Lapierre argued that Swift exaggerated how she was "cancelled" in the past, trivializing real cases and turning it into a shallow, trendy statement. She also wrote that it "sounds like Disney villain music — the ugly stepsister of 'Vigilante Shit '". [20]
Credits are adapted from album liner notes. [21]
Studios
Personnel
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA) [60] | Gold | 35,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. | ||
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