• Taylor Swift revealed that her song “Elizabeth Taylor” was inspired by a comment made by Elizabeth Taylor’s son, Chris Wilding, who compared Taylor to his mother.
  • The comment came from Chris’s 2024 Guardian interview, where he praised Tay’s courage and likened her spirit to his mother’s.
  • This is far from the first time Taylor has referenced the icon in her work.

And so continues Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl promo blitz! Over the past few days, she has spilled the inspo behind several of her new tracks—including “Wood” and “Wi$h Li$t”— and during her latest interview with Pandora, Taylor finally revealed the inspiration for the song “Elizabeth Taylor.” Fun fact: It all began with her parents.

As Taylor explained, “My parents sent me this clip of Elizabeth Taylor’s son saying something very flattering, that if there were one person he might compare to his mother in the modern day, in terms of persona and…the chaos around us, he said it would be me. I was so flattered by that. I just immediately started talking to Travis about it.”

She continued, “I was going on and on about Elizabeth Taylor, talking about all the things about her that I loved…how she kept challenging herself late into her life. I had to get out of the car, I was like, ‘One sec, I have to get out of the car for a second,’ and I just sang this melody into my phone, got back in the car and…that’s what it’s like when it happens.”

For the record, the clip in question was likely from Chris Wilding’s 2024 interview with The Guardian. His exact quote: “I can’t tell you how much I admire Taylor Swift. I’m now a Swifty. [Her Instagram post] at the end of that presidential debate was so fucking great. Huge props to her. That reminds me a little bit of the same spirit my mom had.”

When Chris found out that one of the tracks on The Life of a Showgirl included a tribute to his mother, he made it clear that he was pleased, telling TMZ he considered Taylor a “rare, positive role model for young girls” and that he’s always “admired her philanthropy and courage to stand up for what she believes.”

This isn’t the first time that Tay has referenced the icon in her work, either. Her song “...Ready For It?” has the lyric, “He can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor,” which references Elizabeth’s on-and-off-again relationship with Richard Burton, and for The Life of a Showgirl: The Crowd Is Your King, Tay donned a corset from The Blonds’ 2023 fall collection that was specifically inspired by Elizabeth Taylor.

And let’s not forget another Elizabeth Taylor-coded moment from 2023, when Keleigh Teller gave Taylor an extravagant opal ring surrounded by blue topaz that the singer said looked like it should be for Elizabeth Taylor.

Keleigh’s response? “You’re my Elizabeth Taylor.”

We love to see icons supporting icons.