Taylor Swift fans react to Charlie Puth mention on The Tortured Poets Department

‘Out of everyone... EVERYONE... on God’s green earth... Charlie Puth,’ wrote confused listeners

Taylor Swift’s long-awaited album The Tortured Poets Department was released on Friday (19 April) and one person has received a special mention that has had listeners scratching their heads.

The 34-year-old singer’s fellow musician and “We Don’t Talk Anymore” singer Charlie Puth, was singled out in lyrics from the title song of the album.

“You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate/ We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” Swift sings. “I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever/ Now I’m down bad crying at the gym.”

The singer announced the project, which marks her 11th studio album, while accepting a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album (for 2022’s Midnights) in February this year.

The project was reportedly leaked online on Thursday (19 April), and the Puth lyrics confused fans and critics alike, with some even suspecting the song was an AI prank.

“If this is a marketing ploy by her team to make some statement on AI art by leaking a fake album written by ChatGPT, Taylor Swift may be the smartest woman alive,” wrote one user on X/Twitter before continuing: “However, it’s not. She genuinely wrote that Charlie Puth line LOL”.

The lyrics have prompted some ridicule on social media. “She’s torturing poetry,” one listener said.

Fans were left confused by the special mention (Getty Images)

Others questioned why Puth was singled out for special attention on the record-breaking album, which has already been streamed over 200 million times.

“Out of everyone... EVERYONE... on God’s green earth... Charlie Puth,” wrote one confused listener on X/Twitter.

Another questioned Swift’s choice to include Puth, who has previously been accused of writing derogatory lyrics about her best friend Selena Gomez, whom he briefly dated.

Following the release of The Tortured Poets Department, Swift shared the music video for her lead single “Fortnight”, starring actors Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles of Dead Poets Society fame.

The classic movie was released the year Swift was born, and seems to have inspired the title for her latest album.

“I’m still laughing from getting to work with the coolest guys on earth, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles (tortured poets, meet your colleagues from down the hall, the dead poets),” Swift wrote on social media.

She continued: “When I was writing the ‘Fortnight’ music video, I wanted to show you the worlds I saw in my head that served as the backdrop for making this music.

“Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another. For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell in it.”

The Tortured Poets Department is out now.