Katy Perry was in on the joke as she supported “an old friend” on Friday.
The Teenage Dream superstar took a break from her last season on American Idol and jetted to Sydney, Australia, to watch Taylor Swift perform at the Eras Tour — and she had a silly reaction when the song Swift wrote about her came on.
After the concert, Perry shared a sweet selfie with Swift, along with several videos from the concert with the caption, “Got to see an old friend shine tonight ♥️✨.” In the carousel, Perry included a video of herself watching Swift perform “Bad Blood.” As the song played, Perry jokingly opened her eyes super wide, seemingly poking fun at the fact that the 1989 track that was written about the pair’s former feud.
The reason for the feud? In her 2014 Rolling Stone cover story, Swift revealed that “Bad Blood” was written about a fellow female pop star, a year after Perry had supposedly poached three of her dancers from Red World Tour to bring on her own California Dreams tour.
Swift said in the interview that the singer had done something “so horrible” that made them “straight-up enemies,” explaining, “She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me.”
Perry would later respond to Swift’s comments with “Swish Swish” alongside Nicki Minaj, and later told James Corden in 2017: “Honestly, like, she started [the beef], and it’s time for her to finish it.” (A full breakdown of the beef is found here.)
But the two singers eventually buried the hatchet back in 2019, when Swift, dressed as French fries, embraced Perry, dressed as a burger, at the end of the video for the Lover single “You Need to Calm Down.” That year, Perry also sent Swift a literal olive branch.
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“She sent me a really nice note and an olive branch — like, an actual olive branch — to my tour when it started, the Reputation Stadium Tour, a while ago,” Swift said at the time. “From that point on, we’ve been on good terms.”
Fast forward back to 2024: Along with Perry’s presence (and several other celebrities, as per usual) in the audience, Swift’s concert in Sydney was special for several reasons. Eras Tour opener Sabrina Carpenter joined Swift onstage for a mashup of “White Horse” and “Coney Island,” Travis Kelce was in the audience (as was Rita Ora), and Swift announced a new version of her upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, this one featuring a bonus track called “The Albatross.”