We’re used to hearing her sing frankly and openly about her love-life, but it’s Taylor Swift’s relationship with alcohol that has been causing a stir since the release of her new album The Tortured Poets Department last week.

In her latest single, Fortnight, recorded with Post Malone and widely believed to be about her fling with 1975 singer Matty Healy, Swift confesses, ‘I was supposed to be sent away, but they forgot to get me/ I was a functioning alcoholic/ ‘Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic.’

So never mind the hunk on her arm, what about the drink in her hand?

Whether she’s watching NFL tight-end boyfriend Travis Kelce, 34, play his way to the Super Bowl, at home with BFF Brittany Mahomes, out with her glossy posse in New York or at a pop-up bar in Kansas City, Swift has been regularly seen with a chilled beverage in her grasp in recent months.

And while some may be zero proof, Swift, 34, has made plenty of references to alcohol use in her work. In Delicate she says, ‘We can’t make any promises now, can we babe? But you can make me a drink.’ While in Death by a Thousand Cuts, she sings, ‘I get drunk, but it’s not enough.’

And in 2019’s Cruel Summer – supposedly about the early days of her relationship with Joe Alwyn – she sings: ‘I’m drunk in the back of the car/And I cried like a baby comin’ home from the bar/Said ‘I’m fine,’ but it wasn’t true/I don’t wanna keep secrets just to keep you’

In fact in her last seven albums she has recorded no fewer than 40 songs that mention drinking or being drunk.

But TTPD is the first time she seems to label her drinking as any potential problem.

She said that she quit booze in preparation for her mammoth Eras Tour which saw her train ‘like a frat boy’ in a workout regime that her trainer recently claimed would see most people ‘throw up’. The grueling tour is due to restart in Paris on May 9 after a two-month hiatus, spending most of it with the seeming love of her life Kelce.

Back in January, it was revealed by Rye restaurant in Leawood, Kansas, that Taylor’s new favorite tipple is a French Blonde – a delicious mix of grapefruit, gin, Lillet and St Germaine served up in a coupe – after she spent a night drinking the concoction with Kelce and co.

Last week, lip-reading fan tismejackie took to TikTok to share what she said were exchanges between Kelce and Swift at their recent outing at Coachella.

Under the title ‘check on your swifties, were [sic] not okay’ she narrated the loved up and happy couple as they danced and kissed.

At one point Swift appearing endearingly thrilled to be placed so near the stage, at another she allegedly giggled to Kelce, ‘That was the best thing that happened tonight. Sorry I’m drunk.’

That was a far cry from the time when Taylor, then 21, told 60 Minutes: ‘I have drunk, but I’m not a drinker,’ adding that she did not like the taste of beer and when Lesley Stahl asked if she enjoys wine, she replied: ‘Not really’.

‘I don’t like, like drinking. I’m not like, “Man, that’s my favorite thing to do”,’ she added. ‘And I don’t drink to get drunk because that’s just not cute.’

Fast forward to the MTV Video Music Awards last September and the term ‘Drunk Taylor’ was trending following her energetic appearance in Newark, New Jersey, with fans wondering if booze played a part in her behavior that night as she won almost everything, danced to every song, and fangirled over NSYNC.

Footage showed her slurping drink after drink and while it’s impossible to know what was in each cup she was clearly having the time of her life and seemed in increasingly high spirits as the night wore on.

‘Drunk Taylor’ is a new look for a star who, until recently, was known as much for her carefully curated image as her intensely strong bond with her fans.

And she seems keen to share and make light of her drinking. On stage last June she spoke of, ‘taking up a slight case of alcoholism,’ during the pandemic shutdown when she penned her Folklore album.

In February when caught on camera at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas she theatrically chugged what appeared to be a beer before slamming the plastic cup down on the box ledge with aplomb.

Meanwhile last month she and Kelce were pictured enjoying a romantic getaway in the Bahamas. They were photographed cooling down in the sea, plastic cups in hand and lounging on the beach with each moving occasionally to fix cocktails from a makeshift bar that boasted bottles of liquor set up for them in the sand alongside a cooler full of sodas, mixers and beers.

By her own admission, Swift is a girl heavily under the influence right now, at least when it comes to Kelce. In The Alchemy, the song on TTPD dedicated to him, Swift writes, ‘This happens once every few lifetimes/These chemicals hit me like white wine.’

So perhaps if this relaxed, fun version of Swift is drunk on anything right now it’s love.

Taylor Swift alcohol references in her songs

Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), and Red (2012)

There were no references to alcohol in her first four albums, although she does reference partying on the vault track of Red, The Very First Night

1989 (2014)

‘Clean‘: ‘You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore.’

‘Blank Space’: ‘I get drunk on jealousy’

Reputation (2017)

‘…Ready For It?‘: ‘Island breeze and lights down low. No one has to know.’ Island breeze is a fruity vodka cocktail.

‘Gorgeous’: ‘Whiskey on ice; Sunset and Vine. You’ve ruined my life by not being mine.’

‘Get drunk and make fun of the way you talk’

‘Delicate’: ‘You can make me a drink’ ‘dive bar on the east side, where you at? ‘

‘Getaway Car’: ‘I knew it from the first Old Fashioned we were cursed.’

‘I met you at the motel bar’

‘King Of My Heart‘: ‘Up on the roof with a schoolgirl crush, drinking beer out of plastic cups.’

‘Dress‘: ‘I’m spilling wine in the bathtub. You kiss my face, and we’re both drunk.’

‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’: ‘Jump into the pool from the balcony. Everyone swimming in a Champagne sea.’

‘here’s a toast to my real friends’

‘End Game’: ‘your eyes are liquor, it’s like your body is gold’

‘drinking on a beach with you all over me’

‘New Year’s Day’: ‘cleaning up bottles with you’

‘So It Goes...’: ‘Met you in a bar’

Lover (2019)

‘Cruel Summer’: ‘I’m drunk in the back of the car’ 

‘Cornelia Street’: ‘drunk on something stronger than the drinks in the bar 

‘Paper Rings‘: ‘The wine is cold like the shoulder that I gave you in the street.’

‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’: ‘My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust. Trying to find a part of me you didn’t take up.’

‘London Boy’: ‘And you know I love Springsteen, faded blue jeans, Tennessee whiskey.’

‘You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby with his school friends,’

‘Drinking in the afternoon’

‘False God’: ‘Got the wine for you.’

‘You Need To Calm Down‘: ‘You are somebody that I don’t know. But you’re takin’ shots at me like it’s Patrón, and I’m just like, damn. It’s 7 a.m.’

Folklore (2020)

‘The 1’: ‘Rosé flowing with your chosen family. And it would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me.’

‘The Last Great American Dynasty‘: ‘Filled the pool with Champagne and swam with the big names and blew through the money on the boys and the ballet.’

‘August‘: ‘August sipped away like a bottle of wine, ’cause you were never mine.’

‘This Is Me Trying‘: ‘Pouring out my heart to a stranger, but I didn’t pour the whiskey.’

‘I got wasted like all my potential’

‘Cardigan’: ‘dancing in your Levi’s, drunk under a streetlight ‘

‘My Tears Ricochet: ‘drunk on this pain’

‘Mirrorball’: ‘drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten’

Evermore (2020)

‘Willow‘: ‘Lost in your current like a priceless wine.’

‘Champagne Problems‘: ‘Champagne problems.’

‘Dom Pérignon you brought it’

‘Gold Rush’: ‘ don’t like a gold rush’ (a cocktail)

‘No Body, No Crime’: ‘Este’s a friend of mine. We meet up every Tuesday night for dinner and a glass of wine.’

‘That ain’t my Merlot on his mouth.’

‘Ivy‘: ‘So tell me to run or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become. And drink my husband’s wine.’

‘Closure‘: ‘I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.’

Midnights (2022)

‘Maroon‘: ‘How’d we end up on the floor, anyway?’ You say. Your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top Rosé, that’s how.’

‘The burgundy on my T-shirt when you splashed your wine into me.’

‘Mastermind‘: ‘I’m the wind in our free-flowing sails and the liquor in our cocktails.’

‘Paris‘: ‘Cheap wine, make believe it’s Champagne.’

 ‘Cause we were somewhere else in an alleyway, drinking Champagne.’

‘Question…?’: ‘It was one drink after another’

‘Dear Reader’: ‘My fourth drink in my hand’

 The Tortured Poets Department (2024)

‘Fortnight’: ‘I was a functioning alcoholic. ‘Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic’

‘Florida!!!:’ ‘The hurricane with my name when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine’

‘The Black Dog’: ‘And so I watch as you walk Into some bar called The Black Dog’