As the early reactions to Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, come pouring in, it’s clear that 50 Cent is a fan.
50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, shared a photo of the album cover via Instagram on Friday, October 3, thanking Swift, 35, for shouting him out on the track “Ruin the Friendship.”
“@taylorswift shit is popping right now, 😏she shout me out, 🤫she don’t shout you out,” he wrote. “LOL 😆 THIS IS FOR BIG TIMERS ONLY! @50centaction wait I’m the only shout out on the whole album. 🔥”
50 Cent’s shout-out comes when Swift sings, “And it was not an invitation / But as the 50 Cеnt song played / Should’ve kissed you anyway.”
If we’re being picky, the second track is called “Elizabeth Taylor,” making the late actress another shout-out in addition to 50 Cent, 50. The album also includes a number of apparent references to celebrities, though she doesn’t call them out by name. That includes fiancé Travis Kelce, who Swift alludes to on several tracks, such as “Opalite,” which is all about her and Kelce’s journey toward finding each other.
Swift also seemingly alludes to Olivia Rodrigo, Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta on “Father Figure,” while “Actually Romantic” appears to be a Charli XCX diss track.
“Ruin the Friendship,” which fans originally suspected would be about Swift’s strained relationship with friend Blake Lively, seems to actually be about her high school friend Jeff Lang, who died of an overdose in 2010 amid mental health struggles.
The oft-repeated “should have kissed you anyway” line seems to refer to Swift wondering what could have been if the two friends had been open about their feelings for each other. Later, she recalled when friend Abigail Anderson Berard called “with the bad news.”
“Goodbye, and we’ll never know why,” she sings. “But I flew home anyway / With so much left to say / It was not convenient / But I whispered at the grave / Should have kissed you anyway.”
Swift performed at Lang’s funeral, later reflecting on that moment in a video message to the BMI Country Awards weeks later as she accepted her win as Country Songwriter of the Year.
“It’s been a really emotional week for me,” she said before dedicating the award to Lang. “Yesterday, I sang at the funeral of one of my best friends. He was 21, and I used to play my songs for him first. So, I would like to thank Jeff Lang.”
Swift explained when she first announced The Life of a Showgirl in August that the album would touch on areas of her life, saying it was “everything that was going on behind the curtain” during her Eras Tour.
“This album isn’t really about what happened to me on stage. It’s about what I was going through off stage,” she said in an appearance on Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast. “It’s the life beyond the show.”
“Ruin the Friendship” isn’t the first time Swift has alluded to Lang in her music. “Forever Winter,” a vault track from 2023’s Red (Taylor’s Version), is about a friend battling substance abuse.
“Too young to know it gets better / I’ll be summer sun for you forever,” she sings.
