Fans Are Already Theorizing About Who Taylor Swift's "Father Figure" Is About

Whenever Taylor Swift releases new music, there's usually a pretty quick effort by her many fans to figure out what each of her new songs is about, and who they might be referencing. Now that fans can hear "The Life of a Showgirl" themselves, some are focusing on one track in particular in their efforts to find its meaning.

"Father Figure," which is about a relationship between a mentor and their protege, immediately had people speculating. Here's what we know about who it could be about.

"Father Figure" appears to be about how a relationship between a mentor and mentee went south, and it also interpolates George Michael's song of the same name.

“When I found you / You were young / We were lost in the cold / Pulled up to you in the Jag,” she sings in the song. “Turned your rags into gold / The winding road leads to the chateau / You remind me of a younger me / I saw potential.”

Almost immediately, fans began to speculate that the song was about Olivia Rodrigo. When Olivia first emerged, she was often compared to Taylor, and the two of them once shared a close relationship that eventually fizzled after Olivia released her album "Sour."

While we don't know exactly what happened, Olivia retroactively had to give credit to Taylor for "Deja Vu" after some fans pointed out that it sounded similar to Taylor's song "Cruel Summer."

“I’ll be your father figure / I drink that brown liquor / I can make deals with the devil because my d--k’s bigger,” the chorus of the song goes. “This love is pure profit / Just step into my office / I dry your tears with my sleeve / Leave it with me.”

These additional lyrics led some to speculate that the song was not actually about Olivia at all, and that Taylor was not the father figure of the song's title.

Instead, many suspected that the song might be about Scott Borchetta, who was the CEO of Taylor's former label Big Machine Records. The two had a falling out after Scott sold the masters for Taylor's albums to Scooter Braun in 2019, which kicked off the entire process that led her to re-record those early albums.

“I saw a change in you / My dear boy / They don’t make loyalty like they used to,” she sings in the third verse. “Your thoughtless ambition sparked the ignition / Our foolish decisions which led to misguided visions."

Olivia and Scott have certainly emerged as the frontrunners, although it's possible the lyrics could also refer to Scooter himself, whom she was publicly feuding with for years.

While Taylor rarely offers explicit explanations about who her songs are about, this is a case where it seems like there are a few pretty obvious suspects. Of the names that have been tossed around, Scott seems to be the most likely, in part because he was a sort of mentor to Taylor, who then betrayed her.