Taylor Swift clearly takes a sick kind of pleasure in toying with her fans' emotions, and let's be perfectly honest, we love it.
When the global superstar announced her upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, earlier this month, Swifties immediately set about deciphering all the potential clues hidden in the track list, the album art, and the release date—and the spoils were plentiful.
Among one of the potential Easter eggs we're dealing with here was one song off the album, titled "But Daddy I Love Him," which fans immediately jumped to the conclusion must have something to do with Harry Styles—based on a t-shirt Swift's long-ago ex-boyfriend once wore bearing those words.
every normal person: “but daddy i love him….THE LITTLE MERMAID!” me and my fucked up brain: HARRY STYLES pic.twitter.com/7HoqADYz6IFebruary 6, 2024
BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM!!!?!?! HARRY STYLES IS ALWAYS AT THE CRIME SCENE pic.twitter.com/Wp7ccp53XIFebruary 6, 2024
With that in mind, the original quote is from The Little Mermaid, and Swift also once went as Ariel for Halloween, so there could be a link to something that happened at that party for example.
“But Daddy I Love Him” 👀 pic.twitter.com/biMmnbVLlEFebruary 6, 2024
Meanwhile, other fans think that—rather than song being about Harry Styles—it could potentially feature Harry Styles as a guest artist.
BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM FT HARRY STYLESFebruary 6, 2024
If this theory is correct, Styles would join the other featured artists on the album: Post Malone and Florence + The Machine. Still, I would caution everyone against setting their hopes too high on this front—even though we know the exes are on good terms these days.
Swift and Styles dated briefly circa 2012-13. Her song "Style" from 1989 is widely believed to be about him, while One Direction's song "Perfect" is also rumored to be about Swift. (Styles became famous as part of that boy band.)
Styles is currently dating actress Taylor Russell, while Swift's romance with NFL pro Travis Kelce has been on everybody's minds ever since it started up last summer.
