Photo Illustration: Vulture; Photos from Shutterstock and Getty Images
Say hello to the latest addition to Taylor Swift’s roster: there’s something brewing between the pop star and Drake, according to a photo the rapper posted to his Instagram of him awkwardly hugging her. (Celebs, they’re just like us — except they all seem to know each other!) “You’re too soft to understand the meaning of hard work,” Drake captioned the photo, the fifth and final in an extremely random series of himself himself and his son Adonis. Sure, Swift has a large and varied circle — she’s done much of her recent work with a member of indie rock band The National — but that still seems like a slightly odd pairing, aside from the fact that both she and Drake runs the charts like few others do these days. She’s previously popularized her Drake fandom by name-checking the rapper on the Lover opener “I Forgot That You Existed.” So is this the start of a Swiftian rollout for a new chart-topper? Or is Drake just stating that he met Swift like any living, breathing human would? Here are a few theories the internet has been hard at work on.
Swift has new music with Drake.
As BuzzFeed News noted, this photo dates back to 2016, when Swift was fueling speculation about recording music with Drake. A source told the Sun at the time that she was in the studio with the rapper but none of their collaborations ever saw the light of day. This music could be released as a vault track(s) on an upcoming Taylor’s release from either 1989 or Reputation as their collaboration came about between the two – except Swift can’t legally re-record the rest of Reputation until five years after its release November 2022. To go a little further down the rabbit hole, some fans think this means Swift is bringing a whole new album off the vault, the rumored scrapped 2016 release Karma.
Swift re-records an old song with Drake.
Swift already has a song that would make sense for a Drake feature: “Bad Blood,” which she originally remixed with Kendrick Lamar when it was released as a single in 1989. Sure, Swift is one of the biggest pop stars alive, but Lamar seems to be busy with his own long-awaited album release, so we’re assuming he won’t show up on 1989 (Taylor’s version). But as another rapper Swift knows – who has previously danced to “Bad Blood” in an Apple commercial no less – Drake could make sense as an alternative feature in a remix. Also, Swift debuted her re-recording of the 1989 song “Wildest Dreams” in the movie Spirit Untamed, so we could already be in 1989 (Taylor’s version) rollout mode and not even know it.
Swift and Drake are dating.
Okay, the logistics of this one get pretty tricky considering Swift has been in a committed relationship with actor Joe Alwyn for years. But the Sun seems to think she and Drake are now a couple, and has released three separate stories about their relationship in the past 12 hours. No, the newspaper has no sources confirming anything in the records; as the Sun himself notes deep in one of the stories, “Even though some fans are convinced that with this post they’re saying they’re dating, they’re not.” But perhaps Alwyn is actually in style in his own open relationship from Conversations With Friends?
Drake is just really, really excited to be friends with Taylor Swift.
And we’re all too soft to understand the hard work that went into this friendship!