Certain keywords have been banned from X amid a rumor that Taylor Swift’s upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, has leaked online.
The social media platform barred users from searching the phrase “Taylor Swift leak” on Wednesday, April 17, which is two days before the record is scheduled to hit shelves. Snippets of songs have been circulating across the internet that are alleged to be on the album, which some fans are speculating come from a Google drive containing the entire TTPD record.
After the music made its way online, Swfities were quick to come to the pop star’s defense, flooding the tags associated with faux TTPD links and shaming anyone actively seeking out leaks, which have not been confirmed as real or fake.
“Stop f—king saying anything about TTPD, idc if you aren’t posting the song if you heard a leak or a ‘leak,’ don’t say anything on the TL, got it? It’s that easy,” one fan wrote, while another said, “If I see ‘ttpd leak’ idc if it’s funny ai, it is getting reported ASAP.”
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A third person added: “Quick, everyone start making fake ai tracks for TTPD so we don’t know if the leaks are real or not.”
If the leaks prove to be legitimate, this would not be the first time one of Swift’s albums found its way to the public prior to release day. 2014’s 1989 leaked three days before its drop date, despite Swift taking efforts to keep the music under wraps.
“I have a lot of maybe-/maybe-not-irrational fears of security invasion, wiretaps, people eavesdropping,” Swift shared during an October 2014 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, adding that for months the only copy of the album in existence was on her phone.
If the leaks prove to be legitimate, this would not be the first time one of Swift’s albums found its way to the public prior to release day. Ahead of her third album, Speak Now, Swift’s lead single “Mine” was leaked online.
“[My manager] said, ‘I don’t want you to panic.’ And I said, ‘The song leaked, didn’t it?’” Swift told MTV News in a 2010 interview. “I turned on my phone and there were texts saying, ‘Congratulations.’ A leak is so out of my comfort zone, but it ended up good in the end. It made me so emotional that I started crying.”
Swift has since put in fail safes to keep people from gaining access to her music too soon. In 2014, she opened up about how she keeps her songs under wraps during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
“I have a lot of maybe-/maybe-not-irrational fears of security invasion, wiretaps, people eavesdropping,” she explained, adding that for months the only copy of her fifth studio album, 1989, in existence was on her phone.
The effort however, wasn’t successful, as 1989 leaked four days ahead of its release. The same happened for 2017’s Reputation and 2019’s Lover, when both leaked 12 hours ahead of their release dates.
That still hasn’t stopped Swift from continuing to put defenses in place to keep her music locked down. In 2018, the singer revealed that she often has her dancers perform to a “click track” in music video shoots to avoid her songs being heard.
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“I commend [them] fully because um…they’ve been pretending like there’s music playing when there’s not,” she quipped during a BTS clip from her “End Game” music video shoot, revealing she had wearing in-ear monitors throughout the video which had been playing her song back to her.
Ed Sheeran, who has been featured on multiple tracks of Swift’s, confirmed her attempts at secrecy when speaking to Capricho in 2017.
“She wouldn’t ever send new songs, no,” he told the outlet. “I hear them but it has to be with her. I remember when I did a song with her for her album, I was in San Francisco and they sent someone with a locked briefcase with an iPad and one song on it and they flew to San Francisco, and they played me the song I’ve done with her. And they were like, ‘Do you like it?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And then they took it back. That’s how you hear them.”
