Taylor Swift explains Ruin the Friendship meaning on The Life of a Showgirl

13 October 2025, 11:09

Taylor Swift's new song 'Ruin the Friendship' has been released. Picture: Getty

By Hope Wilson

Is Taylor Swift's song 'Ruin the Friendship' about Jeff Lang? Here is everything The Life of a Showgirl singer has said about the track.

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Taylor Swift has revealed the meaning behind her song 'Ruin the Friendship' following the release of her album The Life of a Showgirl.

Alongside tunes such as 'The Fate of Ophelia', 'Father Figure', 'Actually Romantic', 'Opalite', 'Cancelled!, 'Wood', 'Honey', 'Elizabeth Taylor', 'Eldest Daughter' and 'Wi$h Li$t', 'Ruin the Friendship' is track six on the record and focusses on Taylor's life in high school.

Speaking about the meaning behind the song, Taylor said: "The song 'Ruin the Friendship' is a song I wrote about reminiscing back on high school."

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She continued: "I obviously used to write about high school all the time. I haven't written about it in a very long time, but sometimes I will, like sometimes on Folklore, I'll just be like, you know that feeling when it's August about you're like, 'meet me behind the mall and you'll cancel your plans.' I love to kind of go back into that mode."

Taylor Swift has spoken about her song 'Ruin the Friendship'. Picture: Getty

Taylor added: "Now that I have years that have passed since that experience and I was thinking about, I was having a very specific thought of like, you just think that everything is so intense and everything will just ruin everything if you put one foot out of line, right?

"You don't want to tell this person that you have feelings for them cause that might ruin the friendship and god knows what would happen if that happened. And I kind of was sitting there thinking like, it would've been fine to take chances that I didn't take. I'll never know, maybe it would've been horrible, maybe none of this would've happened. But I was always just so disciplined about things in high school, I think this song is an exploration of like, what if you would have just told the person that you were just friends with that you had a thing for them, like what would've happened and how at least you would know.

"So it was exploring that idea of like, was it so consequential? Would it have been so crazy if you were younger and you just took some chances that you didn't take. And that really made way for this story that was inspired by several different people I knew in high school who either went through this, or you know, on both sides of it. It was an amalgamation of different characters that I'd seen throughout my life and I'm really proud of it. It's very wistful, it's very nostalgic."

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Taylor Swift has been open about her high school experience. Picture: Getty

Many fans believe the song is about Taylor's high school friend Jeff Lang who passed away in 2010, aged 21.

The singer paid tribute to him at the 2010 BMI Country Music Awards, saying: "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."

Listeners have picked up on some of the lyrics in 'Ruin the Friendship' which appear to hint at Jeff, such as, "When I left school, I lost track of you / Abigail called me with the bad news / Goodbye... / And we’ll never know why / 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."

Taylor's childhood friend Abigail Anderson is mentioned in the song and after attending the same high school as Taylor, it is believed she would've known Jeff.

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Taylor Swift's friend Abigail Anderson is mentioned in the song. Picture: Getty

Taking to X, formally known as Twitter, many fans discussed the meaning of the song, with one fan penning: "I just learned that Ruin the Friendship is about Taylor’s high school crush Jeff Lang. RIP Jeff Lang"

Another wrote: "I wonder if she was re-recording some vaults from debut that was about Jeff and started to write Ruin The Friendship out of inspiration."

A third added: "Ruin the Friendship' isn’t the first time Jeff’s memory has influenced Taylor’s music. He is also associated with 'Forever Winter' and 'Bigger Than the Whole Sky', which explore themes of loss."