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Singing megastars Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are at war over Swift’s latest revenge track Mean Girls with speculation that it is about a falling-out between the two singers and involving Launceston dancer Lockhart Brownlie.
It was revealed on Tuesday that Swift’s track Bad Blood, off her new album 1989, is about a fight she had with another female recording artist.
While Swift says she avoids "overt call-outs" in her songs, it seems even Perry thinks this particular jab is at her.
Perry sent a cryptic message to her 56 million Twitter followers, referencing the bullying character played by Rachel McAdams in the movie Mean Girls.
"Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing," Perry tweeted.
In Swift’s interview for Rolling Stone, she revealed the details behind the fight, saying she now tries her best to avoid the singer in question.
"For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not," Swift told the magazine. "She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ’Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’ "
Swift says the true nature of their relationship emerged last year.
"She did something so horrible. I was like, ’Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me."
Swift performed her Red tour for 14 months in 2013 in 2014, while Perry started her Prismatic world tour in May this year.
A dancer who performed for both Swift and Perry told an Australian newspaper he and two other dancers stopped working for Swift when they got a call from Perry’s team, inviting them to join Perry’s tour instead.
"I was with Taylor for the first six months [of the Red tour]," Lockhart Brownlie told The Examiner in Launceston.
"It was a great experience and she’s a great person to work with, but then Katy contacted us."
Brownlie, now based in LA, told the paper he and the other dancers had performed for Perry during her California Dreams world tour, so it was an easy decision to jump ship.
"Obviously we were with Katy for 2½ years, she’s like family to us, so we were like, ’Absolutely,’ " Brownlie said.
"We weren’t really dancing in Taylor’s tour anyway, so I had got a little bored and I really wanted to do a promo tour."
Despite giving Rolling Stone enough information to get people guessing, Swift said she wanted the person behind the song to remain anonymous.