The Latest Taylor Swift Conspiracy Theory Involves … a Spy Novel?
Taylor Swift can seemingly do it all: Produce a record-breaking tour. Win Album of the Year at the Grammys three times over. Stomach a three-plus-hour Kansas City Chiefs game. But that’s apparently not enough for some Swifties, who are now convinced that Swift has added “secret spy novelist” to her growing list of accolades.
There’s a new Taylor Swift conspiracy in town, and this one involves cat backpacks, redheads, and argyle sweaters. The theory, which has been gaining traction online over the past year or so, centers on the just-released spy novel Argylle and its pseudonymous author, “Elly Conway.” Though the book was released by Bantam Books and Penguin Random Tuesday, Deadline announced back in 2021 that the Bond-esque novel would be adapted into a big-budget film directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, John Cena, and Bryce Dallas Howard.
Prior to 2022, there was virtually no trace of a so-called debut author named Elly Conway, according to the New York Post. But when Apple TV+ dropped a trailer for the film in September 2023, Swifties — intrepid bread-crumb followers that they are — found some suspicious catnip: evidence they believed proved that Elly Conway was really Taylor Alison Swift.
“Argylle?!” one TikToker wrote in a post documenting the theory. “Like, girl loves an argyle sweater.”
Aside from the novel’s name loosely alluding to Swift’s penchant for wearing argyle sweaters, internet users pointed out that the film’s main character carries a Scottish fold in a cat backpack. (Swift has two Scottish folds and was filmed toting a cat backpack in her 2020 Miss Americana documentary.) The other smoking gun, according to Swifties, is the fact that Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays a fictional Conway in the film, has red hair. Swift’s 2021 short film, All Too Well, also features a redheaded writer.
Obviously, there are a few problems with this theory. The Washington Post’s Sophia Nguyen debunked the conspiracy on Tuesday, noting decidedly that “Taylor Swift didn’t write Argylle.” Nguyen thinks the novel is most likely just a marketing tool for the upcoming film, set to hit theaters on February 2. (Plus, Nguyen points out, you know who else has a Scottish fold? Director Matthew Vaughn.) The other problem, as I see it, is that there’s no way in hell Taylor Swift had time — in the middle of trotting the globe, hiding in janitor carts, and eating chicken with “seemingly ranch” — to pen a thrilling spy novel.
Apologies to the conspiracy theorists, but we’ve got to put this one to bed … where Taylor Swift is probably lying down because she’s tired from having to deal with two conspiracy theories in one week.
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