Taylor Swift: 'Bad Blood is about a female pop rival'

Taylor Swift has aired her grievances with a mystery female pop rival in new song Bad Blood.

The singer counts the likes of Selena Gomez, Lorde, Lena Dunham, Emma Stone, Hailee Steinfeld and Sarah Hyland among her many girlfriends, but there's one famous female she has never gotten along with - and now she's channelled her feelings of bitterness into the track from her forthcoming album, 1989.

Swift refuses to name names or go into specific details, but in a candid new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, she explains, "For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, 'Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?' (Then last year) she did something so horrible. I was like, 'Oh, we're just straight-up enemies'. And it wasn't even about a guy!

"It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I'm surprisingly non-confrontational - you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It's awkward, and I don't like it."

Swift admits the fall out "broke my heart... because I have such a high priority on girls sticking together", and she wishes she could say some of the lines from the tune directly to her rival.

She adds, "Sometimes the lines in a song are lines you wish you could text-message somebody in real life. I would just be constantly writing all these zingers - like, 'Burn. That would really get her'. And I know people are going to obsess over who it's about, because they think they have all my relationships mapped out. But there's a reason there are not any overt call outs in that song.

"I know people will make it this big girl-fight thing. But I just want people to know it's not about a guy. You don't want to shade someone you used to date and make it seem like you hate him, when that's not the case."