Taylor Swift’s Charlie Puth Lyric Has Selena Gomez Fans Confused

Welcome to the literary halls of The Tortured Poets Department. On April 19, Taylor Swift released her 11th album, the first taste of her tenure as a wilted poet with a possible coffee addiction. (Ahem, the brown-stained edges on the writings displayed in her library.) True to her songwriting lore, Swift draws musical inspiration from those close to her on this project. In fact, some fans believe she may have had Selena Gomez in mind on the album’s title track... but not in a good way.

On the song “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift sings about how disorienting one of her past relationships was. She details a conversation she had with her ex beau — which fans are theorizing might be Matty Healy — in the second verse, and its topic feels specific to Gomez. Swift sings:

“You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever.”

The Charlie Puth line confused Gomez’s fans, who are aware of her odd history with Puth. It all started in January 2016, when Gomez and Puth teased their collaboration, “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” on Snapchat. This video spurred rumors the two were dating, but Gomez denied the hearsay to E! that same month.

Despite Gomez’s response, the romance rumors only grew after “We Don’t Talk Anymore” released in August 2016. At the time, many people thought the track was about Gomez’s ex, Justin Bieber, whom she broke up with in 2012. (There were also whispers that Bieber and Gomez secretly got back together in 2015; however, that was laid to rest once he went public with his now-wife, Hailey, in January 2016.) Yeah, it’s... a lot — but it only gets messier.

In 2018, Puth surprisingly changed his tune and revealed the rumors were true. “I don’t kiss and tell, but the only way a song like [“We Don’t Talk Anymore”] can come across as real is if there’s something else going on behind the scenes,” he told Billboard. “That’s what was happening [with Gomez]. Very short-lived, very small, but very impactful.” A source close to Gomez claimed the two “never dated” shortly after.

Puth also released “Attention” that same year, a song many fans believed was also about Gomez. In a video explaining the song’s lyrics, Puth said it was inspired by someone who would repeatedly invite him to “sleep over” but then “nothing would happen.” He never addressed the track’s subject until March 2023, when he randomly said: “Attention is about what you think it’s about,” on X (formerly known as Twitter). He later deleted the tweet.

It’s not clear where Puth and Gomez’s relationship stands; however, this disorienting timeline left a sour impression on her fans. Also, with Gomez and Swift having such a close friendship, it didn’t sit right with many users that she lyrically praised Puth on Tortured Poets. One person called the lyric “weird” while another brought up a 2020 quote Swift made about “protecting Gomez from those who’ve hurt her,” hinting their friendship might not be as tight as it seems.

Meanwhile, there are some fans who believe Swift wasn’t shading the Rare singer at all. (It’s important to know Swift wrote Tortured Poets over a year ago, and the two friends have publicly hung out at events in that same timeframe.) In fact, they insinuated that Gomez and Puth might be on good terms since her younger sister, Gracie, took a photo with him at the Champions for Children event in 2022.

Neither Gomez nor Swift have responded to the theories.