Fans have been speculating that Swift provided uncredited vocals to the song.
Lester Fabian Brathwaite is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, where he covers breaking news, all things Real Housewives, and a rich cornucopia of popular culture. Formerly a senior editor at Out magazine, his work has appeared on NewNowNext, Queerty, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. He was also the first author signed to Phoebe Robinson’s Tiny Reparations imprint. He met Oprah once.
Despite what it would have meant for the prospect of world peace, Taylor Swift does not appear on Beyoncé’s eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter.
Fans across the aisle have been speculating that Swift sings background vocals, uncredited, on the track “Bodyguard,” but Entertainment Weekly can confirm that the “Anti-Hero” songstress is not a part of Bey’s packed rodeo.
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Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. JOHN SHEARER/GETTY
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Beyoncé touted the many collaborators she worked with on the album, which has been five years in the making, in a press release issued Friday morning. Each song, she says, is “its own version of a reimagined Western film,” inspired by movies like Five Fingers for Marseilles, Urban Cowboy, The Hateful Eight, Space Cowboys, The Harder They Fall, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
However, Swift is not one of those collaborators, and appears nowhere on the new record.
Cowboy Carter is the second act in a musical trilogy, following 2022’s Renaissance. Beyoncé was actually planning to release Cowboy Carter first, but with the “heaviness” of the pandemic, she thought, and rightly so, “We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance.”
With her latest effort, Beyoncé has created some of her most ambitious work to date. Cowboy Carter is an exploration of history and culture through not only country music, but also rock & roll, Americana, bluegrass, and myriad other styles.
“I think people are going to be surprised because I don’t think this music is what everyone expects,” Beyoncé said in a statement, “but it’s the best music I’ve ever made.”
Cowboy Carter is out now. Listen to “Bodyguard” — sans Taylor — below.
