The Los Angeles Times profiled Blur and Gorillaz frontman and Brit-pop poster boy Damon Albarn over the weekend and one detail that popped out happened to be an off-handed remark about Taylor Swift. And when the Times shared the post and highlighted what Albarn said, well, Swift and her fans weren’t happy about it. In his sit-down, Albarn claimed that Swift “doesn’t write her own songs” — which even the most casual Swiftie would know isn’t true at all. In fact, Swift writes her own songs and then goes on to write 10-minute long versions of those songs when she re-releases them. Call it nostalgia (Taylor’s Version).

When the Times interviewer told Albarn that Swift also co-writes her material (and songs for other artists), he responded, “That doesn’t count. I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different to writing. I’m not hating on anybody, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between a songwriter and a songwriter who co-writes. Doesn’t mean that the outcome can’t be really great.”

PHOTO BY KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE RECORDING ACADEMY
In response, Swift wrote that she had respected Albarn and his work and was taken aback by his words. She didn’t mention that she received the Hal David Starlight Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards back in 2010.

“@DamonAlbarn I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging,” one of her Tweets read. “You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really fucked up to try and discredit my writing. WOW.”

She followed it up with “PS I wrote this tweet all by myself in case you were wondering” to add a very loud mic drop to the end of the exchange.

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Jack Antonoff, who worked with Swift on several projects, also came to her defense with a few tweets of his own.

“I’ve never met Damon Albarn and he’s never been to my studio but apparently he knows more than the rest of us about all those songs Taylor writes and brings in … if you were there, cool go off. If not, maybe shut the fuck up?”

Albarn did apologize, stating that he didn’t want to discredit Swift’s songwriting and that the whole thing was blown up.

“I had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait. I apologize unreservedly and unconditionally,” he wrote in response to Swift’s tweet. “The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand.”