How Taylor Swift ruthlessly destroyed her own Girl Squad: What REALLY sparked feud with Miles Teller’s wife Keleigh… truth about Karlie Kloss breakup… and every A-list ‘bestie’ discarded
A little over ten years ago, Taylor Swift summoned her ‘squad.’ The singer was filming the video for 2015’s Bad Blood and wanted to depict herself flanked by the most glamorous group of sidekicks imaginable: Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne and Cindy Crawford among them.
Swift and her spandex-clad ‘assassins’ strode into combat against Selena Gomez, whose character in the video betrayed Swift – seemingly a swipe at Katy Perry, with whom Swift was apparently feuding at the time. ‘Now we got bad blood,’ Swift sings. ‘You know it used to be mad love.’
And for years, Swift’s life imitated her art: everywhere she went, an impossibly beautiful swarm of starlets surrounded her, hanging off her every word at New York’s most happening eateries and bars.
When she went through yet another high-profile breakup with yet another soon-to-be-trashed-in-song boyfriend, the girls were there, striding forth to say without words, ‘Who needs boys, anyway?’
Others saw the girl gang and asked how to join their ranks – chief among them Blake Lively. But more of her later.
Fast forward to today, and the soon-to-be-wed Swift, 36, has changed her tune. Gone is the gaggle of girls: now she clings to her man, NFL star Travis Kelce, also 36.
Which begs the question: Were all those famed friendships the real deal or just part of Swift’s carefully curated – and jealously guarded – image? Was she ever really a girls’ girl at all?
A little over ten years ago, Taylor Swift summoned her ‘squad’
Fast forward to today, and gone is the gaggle of girls: now she clings instead to her man, NFL star Travis Kelce
For years, everywhere she went, an impossibly beautiful swarm of starlets surrounded her
Zendaya, who in 2015 called Swift ‘a genius’ and ‘really a sweetheart,’ has long gone. True, Zendaya is now married to her Spiderman co-star Tom Holland and no longer the girl about town she once was.
But that surely doesn’t entirely explain the extent to which she appears to have been carved out of Swift’s circle. The two have not been spotted together for over a decade.
Still, that cooling pales to insignificance when set beside the gulf that now exists between Swift and her one-time best friend, supermodel Karlie Kloss.
Their ‘meet cute’ was very public, sparked in 2012, when Swift told Vogue magazine: ‘I love Karlie Kloss. I want to bake cookies with her.’
Kloss responded on Twitter: ‘Hey @taylorswift13 love the @voguemagazine cover! Your kitchen or mine?’ Soon the pair were inseparable.
In 2015, Swift said their meeting two years earlier – orchestrated by Kloss’s fellow Victoria’s Secret model Lily Aldridge – lit an immediate fire. ‘We were just like, “You. My friend. Now,”‘ she recalled. A few months later, they crossed paths at an Oscars afterparty and Kloss suggested they do something spontaneous. They ended up going on a road trip to Big Sur.
From then on, the pair documented their globetrotting adventures on social media, gushing about their love for each other in interviews and shimmying on stage together around the world.
Their declarations were effusive and extravagant: In March 2014, Kloss etched Swift’s name in sand on the beach, writing ‘Karlie heart Taylor’ for an Instagram photo. At the end of the year, they held hands on the catwalk in London for a Victoria’s Secret show, beaming as if they could barely believe they were sharing this moment.
Kloss posted a photo to Instagram of the two of them, captioned – with a reference to Swift’s song Style – ‘Cause we never go out of style…’
But by 2016, their friendship was off the boil. Some have speculated that it was due to a political parting of ways thanks to Trump’s electoral victory of that year: Kloss was in a relationship with entrepreneur Josh Kushner, whose brother Jared is married to Ivanka Trump. Swift, who kept her political beliefs to herself for many years, is, we now know, a Democrat who has called Donald Trump ‘a walking ball of chaos.’
Others speculated that Kloss’s firm friendship with Swift’s longtime nemesis, record executive Scooter Braun, became a problem: Braun was believed by Swift to side with her adversaries, such as Kanye West. He would then go on to purchase the masters of Swift’s first six albums: She would spend years battling him before buying them back in 2025.
Whatever the reasons, there was a definite freeze in the once soft air between Kloss and Swift.
Swift was not present when Kloss married Josh Kushner in October 2018, nor did she attend Kloss’s much larger wedding celebration in Wyoming in June 2019.
Swift’s spokesman said it was due to her busy schedule, but few failed to note her absence. Indeed, the pair have not been seen together since August 2018: when Kloss attended Swift’s Eras Tour show in 2023, she was relegated to the stands.
This was explained away as mere logistics – Kloss wanted to sit with friends and there wasn’t room in the VIP area for all of them. But eyebrows were raised and the arrangement was taken as very visual proof of the distance that had grown between the two women.
Zendaya has long gone; The two have not been spotted together for over a decade
By 2016, there was a definite freeze in the once soft air between Swift and her one-time best friend, supermodel Karlie Kloss
As Swift assembled her girl gang, others saw and asked how to join their ranks
There are some reports that Kloss might attend the Swift-Kelce wedding in what would be a remarkable turnaround. But there is no denying their friendship is not what it once was.
Kloss’s fellow Victoria’s Secret ‘angel’ Martha Hunt, 37, was another Swift sidekick relegated to the cheap seats.
At the time of the Bad Blood video, Hunt and Swift were almost inseparable: having met at the 2013 Victoria’s Secret show, they grew so close that Hunt was among the select few invited to Swift’s infamous July 4, 2015, party at her Rhode Island mansion, where the group donned color-coordinated swimsuits and frolicked for Instagram.
The ardor cooled, though, and they have not been seen together since July 2018.
Perhaps the most high-profile purge was that of Lively, forced to walk the plank after dragging Swift into her own legal battles. The speed with which Swift distanced herself from her former ‘bestie’ drew some to conclude that, as far as the singer is concerned, a friend in need is a burden best shed.
Truth be told, the friendship didn’t have the most auspicious start. Shortly after her Bad Blood video was released in 2015, a commentator online suggested Lively, 38, was criticizing Swift.
Lively had shared an image from a L’Oreal campaign featuring her, Julianne Moore and John Legend, and captioned it: ‘…soooo, turns out this WASN’T a video shoot for John Legend’s cover of Bad Blood…’
Lively replied: ‘Umm whoever thought I was throwin shade clearly doesn’t know I have a “Taylor Swift Please Be My Wife Voo Doo Doll” #obsessed.’
Soon, Lively was officially ‘in’ – wherever Swift went, there was her Hollywood friend. That same year, Swift told Vogue how fortunate she felt to have ‘this group of girls who need each other as much as we need each other.’
Lively was once so close to Swift that she asked the singer to be godmother to all her three daughters: James, now 11; nine-year-old Inez and six-year-old Betty. Swift and Kelce were regularly seen out and about with Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds – including in October 2024, when the foursome dined at Manhattan hotspot The Corner Store.
But two months later, Lively’s legal team submitted a series of text messages sent to her from Swift as part of her case against Justin Baldoni, Lively’s co-star and director in the film It Ends With Us. Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment on set of the film, and he countersued.
In January 2025, Baldoni mentioned Swift in his lawsuit and in April 2025, his lawyers subpoenaed the singer for her texts to Lively.
Baldoni wanted them as part of his claim that Lively had used her famous friends to trash him and his work.
The pair have not been seen together since August 2018
Victoria’s Secret ‘angel’ Martha Hunt was another Swift sidekick relegated to the cheap seats
Perhaps the most high-profile purge was that of Lively, forced to walk the plank after dragging Swift into her own legal battles
Swift was reportedly furious at being caught up in the Lively-Baldoni dispute and her spokesperson issued a decidedly frosty statement distancing herself from the whole fiasco.
‘Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, and she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history,’ the spokesman said.
‘Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.’
Lively and Swift are now said to be estranged and have not been seen together since that final October 2024 outing. However, if reports are to be believed, Lively still holds out hope for an invitation to Swift’s wedding.
For a while, Swift was close to Top Gun star Miles Teller thanks to her decade-long friendship with his wife Keleigh Sperry.
Keleigh and Miles were among the small group of friends to spend Swift’s 34th birthday with her in December 2023. At the time, Keleigh posted an image of the striking – and huge – opal ring she had made for the singer as an extravagant gift.
‘Wow. This is like a present for Elizabeth Taylor, not me,’ Swift said in a video posted online. ‘You’re my Elizabeth Taylor,’ Keleigh replied.
But such gestures seem a thing of the past. And the two women were last seen together in February 2024, when Keleigh joined Swift in cheering on Kelce at the Super Bowl.
Sources told the Daily Mail that by the summer of 2024, what began as a warm friendship had started to cool. ‘Keleigh told Taylor she felt like she was always playing second, third or even fourth fiddle to her other friends.’
Another claimed that when Keleigh and Miles’s home burned down in the Pacific Palisades fires in January last year and Swift didn’t call, ‘Keleigh just let the friendship go. That was the final nail in the coffin of the friendship.’
Swift was once close to Top Gun star Miles Teller thanks to her decade-long friendship with his wife Keleigh Sperry
Sources told the Daily Mail that ‘Keleigh told Taylor she felt like she was always playing second, third or even fourth fiddle to her other friends’
The Haim sisters are longstanding allies of Swift
Of course, some appear to have weathered all of Swift’s many eras and friend groups.
Gigi Hadid, 31, was in the Bad Blood video and at that July 4 gathering. She has reportedly made the guest list for the Swift-Kelce nuptials.
Cara Delevingne, 33, is still a firm friend: Swift and Kelce traveled to London last month for the 40th birthday party of Cara’s sister, Poppy.
A few weeks later, the gang assembled once more – this time in New York City for Lena Dunham’s 40th. Dunham’s crew included Swift, model Emily Ratajkowski and actor Andrew Rannells, who starred in Dunham’s Girls for the duration of its 2012 to 2017 run.
The three Haim sisters – Este, Danielle and Alana – are longstanding allies. What these girls have that others who have fallen by the wayside lack is anyone’s guess.
But perhaps as much as the friendship they offer, it’s what they don’t have so far that gives them such lasting appeal. They don’t have anything scandalous or messy that might threaten Swift’s spotless reputation… or engender even a hint of bad blood.