Comedian Caroline Timoney is reacting to Taylor Swift using her coined “girlboss” phrase in her new song, “CANCELLED” off her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl.
“Hey guys, I wanna make this quick,” Timoney said in a video shared via TikTok on Friday, October 3. “I woke up this morning to discover that my TikTok audio that I made as a sophomore in college, ‘I girlbossed too close to the sun,’ you know, is in a Taylor Swift song.”
The Los Angeles-based Timoney sprang to internet popularity after she published a video via TikTok in April 2021 in which she said, “Listen, I can’t give any more information, but I fear I may have girlbossed too close to the sun.” The audio has since been used in more than 20,000 videos on the platform.
Swift, 35, also used the phrase in her song “CANCELLED!” in which she sings, “Did you girlboss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun?”
Timoney quipped on Friday that she is clearly Swift’s “Shakespeare.”
“Yeah. Do I see us as, you know, kind of co-writers, as fellow songwriters? … Yeah, all of it, all of the above,” she joked in the reaction video. “But I haven’t changed.”
She continued, “I’ve forgotten a few, you know, names of friends and family, ‘cause I’m blowing up, so you know, this kind of thing happens. But I am genuinely so shocked.”
“CANCELLED!” is just the latest in a slew of Swift songs that have caused online chatter, especially regarding who may be behind the ballad that calls out so-called cancel culture.
Some fans believe the song may be about Brittany Mahomes, wife of Travis Kelce’s teammate, Patrick Mahomes, who has been criticized for her perceived political leanings.
“You thought that it would be OK at first / The situation could be saved, of course / But they’d already picked out your grave and hearse,” Swift begins on the tune. “Beware the wrath of masked crusaders / Did you girlboss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun?”
Swift also emphasizes her support for her friends before she sings about how she likes her friends “cooked in Gucci and in scandal” — a line that made some fans believe could be a reference to the 2024 US Open, which Swift attended alongside Kelce, 35, Brittany, 30, and Patrick, 30.
“It’s easy to love you when you’re popular / The optics click, everyone prospers / But one single drop you’re off the roster / Tone-deaf and hot, let’s f***ing off her,” Swift sings later in the song, with the “roster” sports reference also appearing as a potential reference.
Other fans believe the song is about Swift’s longtime friend Blake Lively, who has been going through a very public legal battle with her It Ends With Us costar and director, Justin Baldoni. Even Swift herself has had her own experiences with being potentially cancelled.
“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,” she told TIME in 2023, referring to the furor that unfolded after Kanye West released the video for his song “Famous,” which featured 11 celebrities (including Swift) naked in bed. Kardashian and West initially insisted Swift knew about the song’s line “”I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b**** famous,” an allegation Swift denied.
“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.”
