Taylor Swift’s New Heights Appearance: All the Revelations in Her Most Personal Interview Yet
Taylor Swift is not going to get lost in these petty things.
After she revealed The Life of a Showgirl track list on Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast, many eagle-eyed fans wondered online whether track six, “Ruin the Friendship,” could be about her allegedly fraying friendship with Blake Lively amid her legal battle with Justin Baldoni.
However, others pointed out it’s not likely based on the timeline.
After all, the “Fortnight” singer shared that she penned the Life of a Showgirl tracks alongside Max Martin and Shellback during the summer of 2024—months before Blake and Justin’s public legal disputes began that December over their movie It Ends With Us. It was only then that rumors about a rift between her and Taylor took off.
“It was something that I was working on while I was in Europe for the Eras Tour,” Taylor explained on New Heights. “I’d do like three shows in a row, I’d have three days off, I’d fly to Sweden and then go back to the tour.”
It’s also worth noting that Blake and husband Ryan Reynolds attended the Eras Tour during this time, and that the couple stepped out for a very public dinner alongside Taylor and Travis in October 2024.
Meanwhile, there’s also the fact that a source told E! News in January 2025 that rumors Taylor and Blake were no longer friends were “not true.”
Indeed, Taylor and Blake have been friends for over 10 years, and Taylor is the godmother to Blake and Ryan’s kids James, 10, Inez, 8, Betty, 5, and Olin, 2.
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And while Taylor and Blake may be refraining from public outings at the moment, Taylor has previously emphasized her bond with the Gossip Girl alum and Deadpool star by incorporating their kids’ names into her songs and even saying during the Grammys in 2021 that the couple were, alongside her then-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, “the second and third people that I play every new song that I write.”
As for when she does need to settle any scores with actual opponents, Taylor has previously told Time, “There’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies.”
“My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things,” she added to the outlet in 2023. “Keep making art. Trash takes itself out every single time.”
And while Taylor has, of course, alluded to unraveling relationships and friendships in music in the past, “Ruin the Friendship” could very well be about something else entirely. After all, Demi Lovato also has a track with the same name—and the phrase itself and lyrics do not at all detail a friendship breakup.
“Your body’s looking good tonight / I’m thinking we should cross the line,” Demi sang on the 2017 track, insinuating she wanted something more from a friend, rather than less. “Let’s ruin the friendship.”
Keep reading for why Taylor wouldn’t be so quick to actually ruin her friendship with Blake…
December 2015
While on tour in Australia, Taylor Swift spent time at Warner Bros. Movie World theme park with Blake Lively, who was also there filming The Shallows.
“Yesterday was such an amazing day off—roller coasters, kangaroos and LOLs with @blakelively,” the “Lavender Haze” singer wrote on Instagram at the time. Soon after, Blake was spotted shaking it off at Taylor’s 1989 World Tour concert in Adelaide.
This first sighting of the duo hanging out came just three months after the Gossip Girl alum was accused of throwing shade at Taylor’s “Bad Blood” music video on Instagram. But Blake denied that now they had baaaaaad blood, writing on Twitter, “Umm whoever thought I was throwin shade clearly doesn’t know I have a ‘Taylor Swift Please Be My Wife Voo Doo Doll.'”
Blake also shared a backstage photo of a few family members with Taylor on tour. “Look how rad she is here making my niece Heather feel like a rock star,” she wrote. “Love my Canadian family almost as much as I love Taylor Lively. I mean Swift. Ok, FIIINE we can hyphenate our last names. Xo Blake Swift-Lively 4eva.”
December 2015
For Taylor’s 25th birthday, Blake sent a very special surprise: a cat pie.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, Taylor shared a photo of the pastry (featuring her beloved cats Meredith and Olivia), with a message on it that reads “Happy Thanksgiving Birthday.”
Taylor captioned the post, “Blake wins at birthday pies,” adding, “I honestly can’t stop laughing rn.”
Taylor Swift / Instagram
July 2016
Blake, pregnant with her second child at the time, and her husband Ryan Reynolds attended Taylor’s Fourth of July party at her house in Rhode Island alongside celeb guests Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Ruby Rose, Uzo Aduba, HAIM, Karlie Kloss and Taylor’s then-boyfriend Tom Hiddleston. (Yes, they were present for the infamous “I Heart T.S.” t-shirt’s debut.)
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August 2016
Taylor traveled to upstate New York to attend Blake’s baby shower held at the Bedford Post Inn. And it wouldn’t be the last time the Grammy winner would make the trip to the couple’s north-of-New-York-City home.
In October 2016, a source exclusively told E! News that Taylor spent a weekend with Blake and Ryan, even visiting Blake at the hospital after she gave birth to the pair’s second daughter, Inez.
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November 2017
After Taylor released a song titled “Gorgeous,” off her sixth studio album, reputation, fans theorized that the child’s voice featured in the track’s intro belonged to James Reynolds, Blake and Ryan’s oldest daughter. (Blake and Ryan “liked” Taylor’s preview of the song on Instagram, only fueling speculation.)
And when Taylor released her album, she officially confirmed in the liner notes that the “baby intro voice” belongs to James.
Then there was the time Blake and Ryan had the most pure reaction to hearing the track during Taylor’s concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough the following year. Only love for our mom and dad.
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July 2020
Taylor delighted her fans when she released a surprise album, folklore, that she recorded while isolating during the coronavirus pandemic. One song that stood out was “betty,” which uses the names James, Inez and, of course, Betty. Listeners theorized that Betty was the name of Blake and Ryan’s third daughter as the private pair had yet to publicly announce it. And Ryan later confirmed the revelation.
“The names are the names of our kids but, you know, we trust her implicitly and she’s very sensitive to any of that stuff,” Ryan said on an August 2021 episode of The Jess Cagle Show. “And obviously the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names. But, I mean, what an honor. I don’t know. We thought it was pretty damn amazing. We still do.”
Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
March 2021
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November 2021
Taylor and Blake went from BFFs to collaborators when the Betty Buzz founder directed the music video for “I Bet You Think About Me,” a vault track from Red (Taylor’s Version).
“I finally got to work with the brilliant, brave, & wickedly funny @blakelively on her directorial debut,” Taylor raved on Instagram and Twitter. “Join us as we raise a toast, and a little hell.”
That same month, Blake and Ryan helped Taylor celebrate her performance on Saturday Night Live, enjoying a night out in New York City with Cara Delevingne, Taylor’s onetime boyfriend Joe Jonas, his wife Sophie Turner and The Queen’s Gambit star and that night’s host Anya Taylor-Joy.
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June 2022
Blake and Ryan were in the audience to support Taylor when she appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival to promote the short film she directed for “all too well,” the 10-minute version of her iconic 2012 breakup song about Jake Gyllenhaal.
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November 2022
After the release of Taylor’s 10th studio album Midnights, Ryan opened up about how his and Blake’s daughters feel about the superstar being a close family friend.
“I think what’s most exciting for them is that for the longest time they just thought Taylor’s just a, you know, like an aunt, like a friend of mommy and daddy that’s very, very close, almost family,” the Deadpool star explained on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “And then they went to a concert one day and were like, ‘Ohhhhh, this isn’t a hobby.'”
Ryan went on to share that their children were such fans of Taylor’s tunes that her music is “like a religion in their house” and revealed he, Blake and the girls had a Taylor-themed celebration planned after his interview.
“I’m not making this up. We are having a Taylor Swift Midnights dance party right after this,” Ryan said. “It’s Sunday. We’re headed straight to the porch where we’re doing a full dance number set to Midnights—swear words included. My favorite thing is when a 3-year-old is just throwing down the F-bomb in a song and has no idea.”
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April 2023
Shortly after it was confirmed that Taylor and her boyfriend Joe Alwyn had broken up after six years of dating, Taylor was spotted in a getaway car with Blake and Ryan. Literally.
The trio was spotted catching a ride together after having dinner at Manhattan hotspot Casa Cipriani April 19 amid Taylor’s sold-out Eras stadium tour. But several days later, Taylor and Blake, who welcomed her fourth child earlier this year, ditched Ryan when they had a squad day out with Gigi Hadid and sisters Este, Danielle and Alana Haim. The group spent some quality time at the private club Zero Bond.
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October 2023
The trio of friends attended a Kanasas City Chiefs game at Met Life Stadium to support Taylor’s new boyfriend Travis Kelce.
Of the game, and of the excitement around taylor’s NFL attendances, Ryan told Extra, “It’s a lot of fun. The NFL right now is reaching a kind of fever pitch that is usually only reserved for the Super Bowl, but here we are at the fourth or fifth game of the year and it’s already happening.”
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May 2024
During an appearance on Today, Ryan joked that he and Blake hadn’t shared the name of their fourth child yet because they were still waiting on Taylor to share the moniker with them—a nod to her song “betty” on folklore.
“We always wait for Taylor to tell us what the child’s name will be,” the Deadpool & Wolverine star joked. “And, we’ll say this: we’re still waiting, so Taylor, let’s maybe start. You know, she’s a prolific writer. I mean, what are we doing here? And lazy is not a word I’d attach to Taylor.”
Later that month, Blake attended one of the Grammy winner’s Eras Tour shows in Madrid, where Taylor gave an onstage shoutout to her children.
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