Charli xcx’s mockumentary The Moment has only been in US cinemas for a week and already there’s speculation it contains some not-so-subtle swipes at Taylor Swift.
ICYMI, the two pop stars have been at the centre of feud rumours since at least 2024, when Charli seemingly referenced Taylor in her brat song “Sympathy is a knife”.
Taylor returned fire last year with The Life of a Showgirl’s “Actually Romantic”, but it seems the rumoured beef has now travelled from the radio waves to the big screen.
The Moment, which premiered in the US last week ahead of its Aussie debut next month, stars Charli as a fictionalised version of herself preparing for her brat world tour.
The trailer shows Charli as she bristles against the idea of selling out, caves to the whims of industry figures, and sacrifices her artistry in favour of broad commercial success.
It also co-stars Kylie Jenner, Rachel Sennott, Kate Berlant and Alexander Skarsgård, the latter of whom portrays a director in charge of helming the brat tour documentary — which is where the Taylor shade comes in, according to critics.
The Guardian wrote that the plans for Charli’s tour in The Moment “look suspiciously like the Eras tour”, while Paste said the documentary style that Charli disapproves of in the movie is a “reference to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour”. The Cut, meanwhile, put things much more bluntly.
“So Charli sells out to Johannes’s [Skarsgård’s] vision, resulting in an embarrassingly corny tour that evokes Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. You cannot convince me that this film is not Taylor Swift shade,” the outlet wrote.
The gist seems to be that The Moment skewers the music industry and its packaging of pop stars like Swift, who coincidentally just released her own tour doco, The End of An Era.
“Charli is probably never going to confirm or deny if the jabs made in the film are direct hits on Taylor Swift, but it was surprising how unsubtle they were,” Refinery29 wrote. “It’s very Swift-coded to say the least.”
Naturally, it wasn’t long before fans got wind of the apparent snipes. “The ending of The Moment is basically mocking Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour,” one user wrote on X.
Over on TikTok, another user said The Moment’s satirical take on the industry would inevitably ensnare Taylor.
“It’s a mockumentary about a pop star and Taylor is the biggest pop star in the world,” they wrote. “So it makes sense that it would mock her or that people would see certain stuff and assume it’s making fun of Taylor.”
Aussie fans won’t know for sure whether The Moment skewers Taylor until it lands in cinemas next month, but since Charli is notoriously tight-lipped about the feud, I wouldn’t hold my breath for any official confirmation.
In the meantime, stream brat. Or The Life of a Showgirl. Or neither. Or both.
Lead images: A24, Getty Images and X
