Does Taylor Swift Cameo On Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter? Here's The Truth
The Beyhive can rejoice! Beyoncé dropped her new album "Cowboy Carter" on March 29, 2024. The album features some amazing collaborations with artists such as Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, and Linda Martell. There's also a brief cameo from Dolly Parton — who had an encouraging message for Beyoncé after her single "Texas Hold 'Em" hit number one on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. However, following the "Cowboy Carter" release, some speculated that the iconic singer secretly collaborated with another music industry titan.
Fans on social media buzzed about the backing vocals on Beyoncé's "Bodyguard," believing that the voice belongs to none other than Taylor Swift. TikToker @lxv.swift13 shared a video cutting together all the times in the song maybe-Swift could potentially be heard. TikToker @repudaytion shared a video about it too, citing Beyoncé's album cover drop post on Instagram (which mentions "a few surprises on the album") as potential proof that Swift was featured.
The speculation led to the Genius page for "Bodyguard" to temporarily credit Swift (via Twitter). However, that information has since been removed and People confirmed Swift was not featured on the track.
Swift and Beyoncé are friends and supporters of each other's work
As of writing, the credits for "Bodyguard" haven't been added to Beyoncé's website. However, in addition to People denying the rumors that Taylor Swift was on the song, Jason Lipshutz did on X, formerly known as Twitter. Lipshutz, who works at Billboard as the senior director of music, retweeted a post asking if Swift was singing backing vocals for the song and said, "Nope [tilted mouth emoji]."
Nope 🫤 https://t.co/sTQVyRXfJc
— Jason Lipshutz (@jasonlipshutz) March 29, 2024
However, disappointed fans are taking the news in stride. One fan on X wrote, "ALL IS NOT LOST i'm manifesting a bodyguard remix with taylor swift [sic]." Swift and Beyoncé have a superstar friendship, so the duo working together in the (hopefully near) future is not out of the realm of possibility. They've supported each other's work for a long time, all the way back to the 2009 Video Music Awards — Beyoncé let Swift have a redo of her acceptance speech for Best Female Video after Kanye West interrupted and said Beyoncé's was better.
In 2021, Swift had a lovely reaction to Beyoncé's Grammy win. Swift also raved about the "16 Carriages" singer in her Time Person of the Year interview in 2023: "She's the most precious gem of a person — warm and open and funny. And she's such a great disrupter of music-industry norms." She shot down feud rumors too, further solidifying their friendship.