Taylor Swift sued by Las Vegas entertainer for trademark infringement over The Life of a Showgirl

A Las Vegas-based entertainer has sued pop superstar Taylor Swift over her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl, saying she initially came up with the name and concept.

Writer-entertainer Maren Wade filed legal documents in federal court Monday accusing Swift, 36, and UMG Recordings of trademark infringement, false designation and unfair competition, according to records reviewed by the Daily Mail.

‘Maren spent more than a decade building Confessions of a Showgirl,’ Wade’s attorney Jaymie Parkinnen told the Daily Mail in a statement. ‘We have great respect for Swift’s talent and success, but trademark law exists to ensure that creators at all levels can protect what they’ve built. That’s what this case is about.’

Wade asked the California-based court to award her damages, and restrict the Grammy-winning artist from continuing to market The Life of a Showgirl with that name.

Wade, a one-time contestant on America’s Got Talent, told the court that beginning in 2014, she penned a column in the publication Las Vegas Weekly titled Confessions of a Showgirl, in which she discussed her career as an entertainer.

Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Swift for further comment on the story. 

Wade’s lawyers said in the court filing that she trademarked the Confessions of a Showgirl brand in 2015, and has expanded it to include a podcast, live shows, and TV and theater projects.

The live shows, according to Wade’s team, consisted of ‘candid and often humorous accounts of the challenges and absurdities of a career in the entertainment industry, from getting stuck inside a giant birthday cake to impersonating a Madonna impersonator.’

Swift had unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register The Life of a Showgirl name – but was turned down on account of Wade’s product, attorneys for Wade said. 

Parkinnen told the Daily Mail that trademark officials found Swift’s name  ‘confusingly similar.’

Despite that, Swift and her team marketed The Life of a Showgirl phrase on a massive scale, as if it were wholly original, Wade told the court.

‘Within weeks, the designation was affixed to consumer goods, stamped onto labels, tags, and packaging, and deployed as a source identifier across retail channels,’ Wade’s legal team said in its filing.

Attorneys for Wade said in the filing that Swift’s marketing was ‘all directed at the same audience Plaintiff had spent years cultivating.’  

Swift marketing the phrase to millions of fans continues an ‘erosion’ of Wade’s brand, her lawyers said.

‘Those are not artistic choices,’ Wade’s lawyers said in the filing. ‘They are commercial decisions, and they have consequences.’

Wade’s attorneys said the name of the product misleads consumers into thinking she had copied Swift’s product, when it was the other way around.

Swift possesses more than 170 active or pending trademark registrations, which encompasses specific names and phrases, under her brands TAS Rights Management and Bravado.

Wade’s lawyers said that Swift and her team ‘are not merely familiar with trademark law – they are among its most vigorous enforcers, having filed multiple federal actions to seize goods from vendors selling trademarked merchandise near concert venues.

‘They possess direct knowledge of the harm that trademark infringement inflicts on a brand, having leveraged that very harm in federal court when it served their interests to do so.’

The Life of a Showgirl, which marked the 12th studio album release for Swift, came out last October to huge anticipation. It broke a number of streaming records via Spotify, and ended the year as its best-selling album.