Much like the singer, the Oscar winner’s career achievements were often overshadowed by unrelenting media attention surrounding her relationships.

What is the connection between Taylor Swift and Elizabeth Taylor?

Much like the singer, the Oscar winner's career achievements were often overshadowed by unrelenting media attention surrounding her relationships.

By Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at ** with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, *Ms. Magazine*, *The Hollywood Reporter*, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, *It Happened One Fight*, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

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Published on August 14, 2025 06:05PM EDT

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Taylor Swift; Elizabeth Taylor. Credit:

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; API/GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty

- On her new album *The Life of a Showgirl, *Taylor Swift has a song called "Elizabeth Taylor."

- The title invokes mid-century movie star Elizabeth Taylor, who was as famous for the scrutiny over her private life as her on-screen career.

- Swift's use of the Oscar winner's name as a title offers us several hints about the song.

"I am the earth mother and you are all flops.”

That’s a bit of dialogue from Elizabeth Taylor’s Martha in the film adaptation of *Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? *But it’s also not hard to imagine it being a tagline for Taylor herself. Or, for that matter, for pop star Taylor Swift, who has now written a song named for the classic film star.

It’s not the first time that Swift has name-dropped an Old Hollywood star in a song title (see: Clara Bow on *The Tortured Poets Department*). But with a larger-than-life figure like Taylor, it certainly seems like a way for Swift to plant a defiant flag in the sand of her new era.

Little is known about the song besides the fact that it’s the second track on Swift’s forthcoming twelfth album, *The Life of a Showgirl. *Swift has referenced Taylor before, nodding to the movie star's mid-century movie star aesthetic in the music video for “Wildest Dreams” and name-dropping the actress in “Ready For It?” on *Reputation *with the clever lyric, “Burton to my Taylor.”

Elziabeth Taylor.

Silver Screen Collection/Getty

But “Elizabeth Taylor” seems like a much more pointed invocation of the actress who basically defined what it is to be a modern celebrity. Elizabeth Taylor began her career as a child star, breaking out in 1944’s *National Velvet, *but as she matured, she rebelled against the strict confines of the studio system that built her image and became more famous for simply being famous than for any one role. Once dubbed "the most beautiful woman in the world," Taylor's fabled violet eyes helped build her reputation as a striking screen presence and alluring portrait of femininity in her transition from teen roles to adulthood.

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If you know nothing else about Elizabeth Taylor, you probably know she was married a lot. Eight times to seven men to be precise (to Richard Burton twice). Her first marriage came when she was only 18 years old to hotel heir Nicky Hilton, and it was a media circus orchestrated by MGM as part of the promotion for her 1950 film *Father of the Bride. *From then on, Taylor’s love life often overshadowed her work on screen.

She came under particular scrutiny in the late 1950s when she had an affair with singer Eddie Fisher following the death of her husband and Fisher’s close friend, Mike Todd. The affair broke up Fisher’s marriage to America's sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, painting Taylor as a home-wrecker in the press. Then, Taylor later left Fisher for Richard Burton, whom she met on the set of *Cleopatra *where they began a tempestuous affair that was single-handedly responsible for the popularization of the word “paparazzi.”

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in 'Cleopatra'. Bettmann Archive / Getty Images

Indeed, Burton and Taylor’s affair sparked such a feeding frenzy in the media that they even received official condemnation from the Vatican for “erotic vagrancy” (which, by the way, is also a great name for a song). The affair led to two marriages for the couple, 11 films, and an ostentatious jet-setting lifestyle that involved furs, jewelry, yachts, and glamorous travel.

The obsession with Taylor’s love life and appearance often reached such a fever pitch that it obscured her remarkable work as an actress in films such as *Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Place in the Sun, Suddenly, Last Summer, *and *Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? *Not only that, it also drew attention away from her incredible success as a businesswoman. Taylor was the first actress to command a million dollar salary on *Cleopatra, *and in later life, she used her fame to build a fragrance and jewelry empire.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

It seems highly likely that Swift is referencing the fame machine aspect of Taylor’s life — the ways in which discourse about Taylor's life off camera often overtook the narrative of her creative career. Swift has, unfortunately, been subject to similar scrutiny in her career. Since her debut album launched in 2006, Swift has had at least a dozen high profile relationships, romances that have often taken on a mythic quality due to her writing about them in her songs. Her new music isn’t necessarily always analyzed for its lyrics or melody first, but rather for what guy might be the inspiration for a song.

Taylor won two Academy Awards in her lifetime (and received the honorary Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award), just as Swift has numerous Grammys to her name. But such accolades are talked about far less than their love lives.

Taylor Swift performs during The Eras Tour.

Taylor Hill/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

Swift has no issue taking shots at the media and fans who use her relationships as a way to demean and excoriate her. With songs like “Shake It Off” and “But Daddy I Love Him,” she’s commented on the fascination with her love life and public image, the tendency to belittle her music for focusing on relationships, and the audacity of fans to feel they have any right to weigh in on who she’s dating. So, it’s not a stretch to imagine that a song called “Elizabeth Taylor,” invoking an incredibly famous symbol of celebrity love and media attention, might do something similar.

Indeed, even the album title, *The Life of a Showgirl*, and its art play on significant parts of Taylor’s image — the notion of a life as a public figure, constantly performing for other’s entertainment, often sexualized and considered only in the context of their relationships to men.

The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift.

Mert Alas & Marcus Piggot

Taylor has an incredible duality as an icon, having also been dubbed an “accidental feminist” and being one of the first celebrities to have her own fragrance and jewelry lines. The issues Taylor forwarded, both via her public image and the roles she played, have now been credited with introducing basic concepts of feminism to the American public. Swift has had a similar relationship with the label of “feminism,” transitioning from her early sweetheart image to a more in-your-face embrace of the word with her pivot to pop. Just as Taylor was questioned as a role model or feminist icon for her sexuality and frequent marriages, Swift has suffered similar scrutiny with some critics claiming her feminism is merely superficial.

*The Life of a Showgirl *is perhaps Swift's most pointedly sexualized album cover, one that seems to be engaging with the hypocrisy of those who criticize her choices in her personal life, while also expecting her to adhere to an unrealistic version of what they deem a "role model" might be.

The Life of a Showgirl, track listings.

Mert Alas & Marcus Piggot

Swift’s imagery for the album engages with that paradox, featuring her dolled up in showgirl attire, her sparkling ensembles dripping with gemstones. In addition to Taylor's body serving as a constant source of discourse, the actress was also heavily associated with diamonds and jewelry, as both the owner of one of the most extensive private jewelry collections in the world and the founder of jewelry company House of Taylor. Her signature fragrance line was even named White Diamonds. Taylor also used much of her wealth to promote causes dear to her, particularly as one of the first outspoken advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Swift is also an entrepreneur in her own right, turning legal drama over the ownership of her masters into a moment of reclamation and a business opportunity. She is the world’s richest female musician and essentially the only billionaire to have built her fortune off of song royalties and touring. And yet, detractors still question whether she’s worthy of dating a Super Bowl winning football player or comment on her outfit choices and body shape.

The Life of a Showgirl art, Taylor Swift.

Mert Alas & Marcus Piggot

Given these parallels, it seems likely that all of this rich cultural history could be fodder for a song bearing Elizabeth Taylor’s name. Or, who knows, maybe Swift’s taking a page out of Kim Carnes’ book and it’s just about Taylor’s violet eyes.

No matter what “Elizabeth Taylor” is actually about, it’s undeniable that both Swift and Taylor are singular women of their generation. Artists, feminists, and high profile figures that attract media attention with the bat of an eyelash. Women who never go out of style. If there’s anyone worthy of inheriting Taylor’s mantle of complicated celebrity, it’s Swift.**

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