Taylor Swift’s newly released track Ruin the Friendship has sparked an emotional reaction from fans, many of whom were left in tears after realizing its true meaning.
While fans initially speculated that the song was about her friendship with actress Blake Lively, the lyrics actually pointed to something much more heartbreaking.
- Taylor Swift’s Ruin the Friendship has fans emotional after its meaning became evident.
- The song is not about Blake Lively, as many assumed, but about a high school friend Swift lost.
- Listeners are in tears after realizing Swift wrote the track in memory of Jeff Lang, who passed away at 21.
Ruin the Friendship was about a high school friend who passed away when Swift was just starting her career.
Fans thought the track was about Blake Lively, but the truth was different and a lot more intimate
Image credits: John Shearer / Getty Images
When Ruin the Friendship appeared on the track list of The Life of a Showgirl, many fans immediately speculated that the song would be about Blake Lively, one of Swift’s close celebrity friends.
According to Page Six, Justin Baldoni claimed in his countersuit against Blake Lively that she used her friendship with Swift to get her way with their controversial movie, It Ends With Us.
Image credits: Taylor Swift / YouTube
The award-winning singer was ultimately subpoenaed by Baldoni’s legal team, and while the investigation was ultimately dropped, the whole fiasco reportedly ruined Swift and Lively’s friendship.
A look at the actual lyrics of Ruin the Friendship, however, immediately made it evident that the song was about a totally different story, one that was far more personal and tragic.
Image credits: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott / taylorswift / Instagram
Swift opened up about regrets from her teenage years, confessing she wished she had kissed a friend before losing him forever.
She sang, “When I left school, I lost track of you / Abigail called me with the bad news / Goodbye… / And we’ll never know why.”
Image credits: Spotify
The verse captured the moment when she learned of her friend’s passing through longtime friend Abigail Anderson.
The emotional core of the song came when Swift described flying home for the funeral, saying she whispered her regrets at his grave.
Image credits: alrightnahh18
“It was not an invitation / But I flew home anyway / With so much left to say / It was not convenient, no / But I whispered it at the grave / ‘Should’ve kissed you anyway.”
Instead of the celebrity feud-fueled song many expected, Ruin the Friendship ultimately turned out to be a heartfelt tribute to a long-lost friend.
Image credits: BMI / YouTube
Fans, however, are now speculating that CANCELLED!, another track on The Life of a Showgirl, might be about Lively, according to the New York Post.
Unlike the intimate tone of Ruin the Friendship, CANCELLED! featured lyrics that are a bit more on the nose.
Image credits: discodiick
“It’s a good thing I like my friends cancelled / I liked them cloaked in Gucci and in scandal,” Swift sang in the song’s chorus.
Blake Lively was named the face of Gucci’s fragrance, Gucci Premiere, in 2012. The actress has also been involved in a scandal with Justin Baldoni following the film It Ends With Us.
Swift’s history with the late Jeff Lang has been referenced in the past
Image credits: caitlinjallan
Though she never named the friend directly in Ruin the Friendship, fans quickly connected the lyrics to Jeff Lang, a close high school friend who passed away at 21. Swift has spoken about him before.
Back in 2010, while accepting the BMI Country Songwriter of the Year award, the then 20-year-old Taylor Swift shared a deeply vulnerable story, according to ELLE.
Image credits: blakelively / Instagram
“Yesterday, I sang at the funeral of one of my best friends. And he was 21, and I used to play my songs for him first. So I would like to thank Jeff Lang,” Swift said during the awards, visibly emotional.
Lang’s passing occurred on November 2, 2010, just days after Swift had released her album Speak Now.
Image credits: Spotify
Previously, fans have speculated that Forever Winter, a vault track from her album Red, was also inspired by her friendship with Lang.
Forever Winter detailed her worry for a friend struggling with mental health and substance a**se.
Image credits: taylorswift / Instagram
The message behind Ruin the Friendship resonated with fans
Image credits: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott / taylorswift / Instagram
What made Ruin the Friendship so powerful wasn’t just Swift’s grief, but the lesson she drew from it.
At the end of the track, she gave some advice shaped by her regret: “My advice is always ruin the friendship / Better that than regret it / For all time / Should’ve kissed you anyway.”
Image credits: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott / taylorswift / Instagram
For Swift, the song was a way of telling her fans not to leave things unsaid, and not to hold back feelings that could become lifelong regrets.
The line, “Better that than to ask it / All your life,” resonated with netizens, many of whom related to the song’s theme and message.
tiktokers foaming at the mouth thinking ruin the friendship is about blake when all this time it was about a high school crush who passed away #TSTheLifeofaShowgirlpic.twitter.com/lKl95YNiHy
— ana (@shivlestat) October 3, 2025
“This song hit me hard. It brought back our friend, whom we lost so recently… I legit started crying. Taylor, you’re unreal,” one commenter wrote.
“I thought Ruin the Friendship was about her didn’t do the kissing at the right time and regret that she didn’t ruin the friendship. But the 3rd verse hit me like a sledgehammer and now I see the full story,” wrote another.
“It’s amazing that the media jumped on this train about it being shady and a diss track when it turned out to be something sad and loving, and I think it sums up the media’s perception of Taylor all pretty nicely,” another commenter stated.
Netizens shared their thoughts on Taylor Swift’s Ruin the Friendship on social media
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