Katy Perry is on the cover of the latest issue of Vogue wearing all sorts of Comme des Garçons, a little cross-promo with the subject of this year’s Met Gala. The accompanying profile, written by Vogue’s delightful Hamish Bowles, delves into her politics and begs the question: Is Katy shooting subliminals at noted enemy Taylor Swift?
Katy Perry, as you recall, spent last year being extremely vocal and even demonstrative in her support for Hillary Clinton, even taking the time to gift Clinton with a gold POTUS nameplate necklace that, oh yeah, she will definitely wear. In the interview, she discusses her involvement, and the darts begin at the very cover, which quotes her as saying “If you have a voice, use it.” From the interview:
“I don’t think you have to shout it from the rooftops,” she says of her political views—she performed at the Democratic National Convention and campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign—“but I think you have to stand for something, and if you’re not standing for anything,” she adds pointedly, perhaps aiming at some of her deliberately apolitical confreres, “you’re really just serving yourself, period, end of story. ‘California Gurls’ and fluffy stuff would be completely inauthentic to who I am now and what I’ve learned,” she adds. “I do believe we need a little escapism, but I think that it can’t all be that. If you have a voice you have a responsibility to use it now, more than ever.”
Aside from dishy Bowles deploying the phrase “deliberately apolitical confreres,” we can all surmise exactly who she is talking about: Taylor Swift, the pop star who is rumored to have written “Bad Blood” about her adversarial relationship with Perry and who, if you will further recall, did not emit so much as a peep during the election cycle, apart from a selfie from a voting line on November 9.
This has led many to speculate that Swift, who comes from wealth and grew up in the generally conservative country scene, might actually be a Trump supporter, despite the liberal inclinations of her adopted city (New York) and friend group (Lena Dunham, Karlie Kloss). That’s the easiest explanation, because the alternative is just too horrifying: that perhaps Swift supported Clinton but didn’t want to speak up during the election and risk alienating a large portion of her conservative fanbase. If that were the case, she would have wasted an enormous and potentially outcome-shifting platform—at the very least, perhaps a couple more apathetic young voters would have made it out to the polls—and I personally would rather believe that Swift just likes Trump a lot than believe she is a Democrat who chose keep silent on an issue whose outcome seems to be the demise of American democracy as we know it, just to protect her bottom line.
What do you think? Is this another chapter in the epic battle of the 50-foot pop stars? Here, take my poll:
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