Paramore's Hayley Williams on Impacting Taylor Swift's 'Better Than Revenge': 'What Did I Influence with That Canceled Lyric?' Ilana KaplanOctober 2, 2025 at 4:25 AM 0 Hayley Williams opened up about Paramore's impact on one of Taylor Swift's songs She spoke about how Paramore influenced the "cancel...
- - Paramore's Hayley Williams on Impacting Taylor Swift's 'Better Than Revenge': 'What Did I Influence with That Canceled Lyric?'
Ilana KaplanOctober 2, 2025 at 4:25 AM
0
Hayley Williams opened up about Paramore's impact on one of Taylor Swift's songs
She spoke about how Paramore influenced the "canceled lyric" in the pop megastar's 2010 track during a conversation with the New York Times' Popcast
Paramore opened for Swift during the Eras Tour
Hayley Williams revealed how Paramore may have impacted one of Taylor Swift's songs.
In a Wednesday, Oct. 1 interview with the New York Times' Popcast, Paramore's lead vocalist opened up about hearing the band's influence on the pop megastar's 2010 album Speak Now.
Rick Diamond/Getty
Taylor Swift and Hayley Williams in November 2010 in Franklin, Tenn.
While discussing the "Ain't It Fun" group's impact on Swift, 35, Williams, 36, seemingly referenced how the band's breakout hit "Misery Business" specifically impacted one of the 14-time Grammy winner's songs.
The 2007 track featured a controversial, seemingly misogynistic lyric the "Mirtazapine" singer wrote as a teenager: "Once a w----, you're nothing more/ I'm sorry, that will never change."
Popcast/Youtube
Hayley Williams on 'Popcast' in October 2025
As host Joe Coscarelli noted Williams' influence on Swift's "pop-punk moments," she then referenced Swift's 2010 track "Better Than Revenge" as a song that Paramore seemed to impact.
"Well, 'Better Than Revenge.' What did I influence with that canceled lyric?" she said.
Frederick Breedon IV/WireImage
Hayley Williams and Taylor Swift in September 2011 in Nashville
Since it's release in 2010, fans criticized the line, "She's not a saint, and she's not what you think / she's an actress, whoa / She's better known for the things that she does / On the mattress, whoa," as problematic.
Coscarelli then noted that "Misery Business" came first.
"Yeah it did. Because Speak Now was during Brand New Eyes for us," Williams clarified
Williams then praised Swift for standing by Paramore — who opened for the "Fortnight" singer during the Eras Tour — over the years.
"She's always been so vocally supportive of the band. She's also been the first person anytime we've been nominated or won a Grammy, I literally get a text from her before I get a text from my family," said Williams.
In the years since the release of "Misery Business," Williams has spoken out about how much she'd grown since writing that troublesome lyric.
Rosalind O'Connor/NBC/Getty; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
Hayley Williams in October 2023 in New York City; Taylor Swift in October 2023 in Los Angeles
"The thing that annoyed me was that I had already done so much soul-searching about it, years before anyone else had decided there was an issue," she said in a 2017 interview with Track 7.
After an article surfaced criticizing the song, Williams said she "sort of had to go and rehash everything in front of everybody."
"It was important, however, for me to show humility in that moment," she added.
Williams noted that she penned the song as a teenager.
"What I couldn't have known at the time was that I was feeding into a lie that I'd bought into, just like so many other teenagers — and many adults — before me," she said, adding: "The whole, 'I'm not like the other girls' thing… this 'cool girl' religion. What even is that? Who are the gatekeepers of 'cool' anyway? Are they all men? Are they women that we've put on top of an unreachable pedestal?"
Paramore even retired the song from 2018 to 2022.
In 2014, Swift reflected on the controversial lyric in The Guardian: "I was 18 when I wrote that. That's the age you are when you think someone can actually take your boyfriend. Then you grow up and realize no one can take someone from you if they don't want to leave."
When she released Speak Now (Taylor's Version) in 2023, the "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart" artist changed the divisive lyric to: "He was a moth to the flame / She was holding the matches, whoa."
on People
Source: "AOL AOL Entertainment"
Source: GL MAG
Full Article on Source: GL MAG
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities