The mystery of Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift’s breakup is like a difficult puzzle with a bunch of pieces that don’t quite seem to match up. It was fun in the beginning, now you’re bored and ready to move on, but you still feel a responsibility to see it through to the bitter end. Today brings us two new corner pieces: a rumor confirmed by Taylor Swift’s publicist, and a Twitter rant courtesy of Calvin Harris.
Swifties—the most promising conspiracy theorists of our time—have long suspected that Harris’s hit single “This is What You Came For” was co-written by his then-girlfriend Taylor Swift. Even though the track came out in April, Swift’s camp chose this auspicious mid-July hump day to declare that Swift did in fact write the song under the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg.
Harris, who is definitely over Taylor Swift but not in the way where he’s stopped talking about her all the time, took to Twitter to clear the air/stir some shit/feel alive again. “And she sings on a little bit of it too...Amazing lyric writer and she smashed it as usual. I wrote the music, produced the song, arranged it and cut the vocals though. And initially she wanted it kept secret, hence the pseudonym,” Harris tweeted. “Hurtful to me at this point that her and her team would go so far out of their way to try and make ME look bad at this stage though…I figure if you’re happy in your new relationship you should focus on that instead of trying to tear your ex bf down for something to do.”
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The world’s pettiest ex-boyfriend rounded out his rant with an unnecessary (and untimely!) reference, ugly-crying, “I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it.” Harris’s allusion to Perry and Swift’s beef, in which two rich white ladies battled over the meaning of feminism, insinuates that the Swift camp is deliberately attempting to take him down.
Indeed, the artist formerly known as Nils Sjoberg is clearly trying to look sympathetic in light of cheating rumors and Hiddleswift backlash. A source who definitely isn’t Taylor Swift talking in a funny accent alleges that Harris and Swift got into a big fight after the hit single’s release, when the EDM artist told Ryan Seacrest that he and Swift had never discussed a music collaboration, and that he “can’t see it happening.” Apparently, Swift wanted the collab to be a secret, but thought that Harris’s emphatic denial took it too far. Or something. If Taylor Swift can convince people that this April feud snowballed into the couple’s June split, then they might stop loudly wondering if she cheated on Calvin Harris.
Still, while Taylor Swift might be a cuter, blonder, more squad-oriented Machiavelli, Calvin Harris is just the worst. Harris sympathizers—like the armada of Tweeters who kept #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trending all Wednesday afternoon—should be reminded that this isn’t the first time the DJ has thrown himself a break-up pity party. In 2014, he shut down his ex Rita Ora’s performance at the Teen Choice Awards; she was set to sing their ironically titled collaboration “I Will Never Let You Down.” He's been a low-key misogynist, racist, and fat-shamer in the past, according to his back catalogue of Instagrams and Tweets, in which he disrespects female artists, makes fun of women’s bodies and stereotypes various ethnicities. Rumors that Harris is distraught over Swift’s alleged cheating are also seriously undermined by the fact that Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift got together at the 2015 Brit Awards…just one day after Harris was spotted enjoying a beach day with Aarika Wolf, his model girlfriend of seven months.
Anyone who thinks that Hiddleswift was an unfair blow to Calvin Harris doesn’t know anything about Calvin Harris. Unfortunately, some of the guiltiest Swift-shamers have been the tabloids and gossip websites whose literal job is celeb-tracking due diligence. This week New York magazine took TMZ to task for their one-sided, gendered reporting. When Harris and Swift originally called it quits, the site insisted that Harris was “over” the relationship, as well as his ex’s “Hollywood” lifestyle. But the second Swift and Hiddleston were spotted doing stuff to each other’s mouths, TMZ dutifully claimed that Calvin Harris was “BETRAYED OVER TAYLOR’S NEW HOOKUP…Suspected for Weeks Before Breakup.”
When they’re not busy publishing contradictory reports—is Taylor Swift a cold-hearted hussy or is Calvin Harris just too cool for Hollywood?—TMZ transforms into a weirdly enthusiastic wingman. They’ve published multiple reports of Calvin Harris stepping out with various women, one of which actually describes the Scot as “smooth.”
I don’t know why TMZ is so set on showing the world that Taylor Swift’s ex is getting some; suffice to say that their confidence in Calvin Harris sleeping with Nicole Scherzinger is as misplaced as their confidence in anyone caring. As long as the corpse of Harris and Swift’s relationship refuses to surrender its bony grasp on the celebrity news cycle, it seems like some unbiased coverage is the least we can ask for.
