April 7, 2021: During an episode of Rolling Stone’s “The Breakdown,” Rodrigo praises Swift again, saying she was inspired by “Cruel Summer” while writing the bridge of “Deja Vu.”
“We wanted to write a bridge…I wanted it to be really high-energy, cause the rest of the song is so serene and eerily calm,” Rodrigo says in the video. “But I wanted the last bridge to go crazy and I love ‘Cruel Summer,’ it’s one of my favorite songs ever.” She continued, “I love the yell-y vocals in it—like, the harmonized yells that she does. I feel like they’re super electric and moving and so I wanted to do something like that.”
July 2021: By July, Swift and Antonoff were given official co-writing credits on “Deja Vu” due to alleged similarities with “Cruel Summer,” which is ironic considering the “Deja Vu” lyric, “Everything is all reused.”
From there, it’s a bit of a snowball effect…
September 2021: Rodrigo retroactively credits Swift’s close friend and Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams on “Good 4 You,” allegedly interpolating the 2007 hit song, “Misery Business.” According to Billboard, Rodrigo gives up 50% of the royalties on these songs to these additional writers, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars.
October 2021: Rodrigo opens up about the ongoing controversy…sort of. “I just feel like sometimes there’s so much noise and criticism and weird things going on in the world,” she tells Teen Vogue. “I hope people know that deep down, all that I do is write songs and talk about how I feel, and that’s the most important thing to me. Everything else, I think, is not so important.”
Then, she continues, “A hard thing for me to grapple with when this whole thing started happening is just, anyone can say anything. You just can’t control…” She trails off before adding, “That goes for anyone, like girls going to high school.”
November—December 2021: The Recording Academy includes Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff as nominees for album of the year for their work on SOUR, before removing them, citing a label error during the “submission process.”
April 3, 2022: Olivia wins three Grammys for best pop vocal album, best new artist, and best pop solo performance.
Everything pretty much dies down for a year.
June 2, 2023: Swift announces Sabrina Carpenter is joining The Eras Tour for multiple tour dates.
June 30, 2023: “Vampire” is released as a single ahead of her sophomore album GUTS, with Rodrigo telling fans that the writing process “helped me sort through lots of feelings of regret, anger, and heartache.” Though most fans initially believe the song is about Rodrigo’s ex, Adam Faze, sources blatantly denied the rumor to People.
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