Taylor Swift's "Tortured Poets Department" Leaks

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About

Taylor Swift's "Tortured Poets Department" Leaks refers to discussions and memes about Taylor Swift's 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) being leaked days ahead of its release on April 19th, 2024. Shared via Google Drive and Telegram links, the leaks contained lyrics such as "We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artists" and "You fall asleep like a tattooed Golden Retriever." The leaks received mixed reviews online, with some speculating that they were not legitimate but were AI-generated using Swift's voice.

Origin

On April 17th, 2024, news about Taylor Swift's album The Tortured Poets Department being leaked online days ahead of its scheduled April 19th release began making the rounds online, primarily hosted on Google Drive and shared via Reddit, Telegram and X / Twitter.

Also on April 17th, X^[6] user @RENAISSANCEIZZZ posted screenshots showing people sharing leaked tracks from TTPD on Telegram, gathering over 1,000 likes in a day (seen below).

X^[1] user @G0DNEYS posted an image containing lyrics supposedly taken from the TTPD leaks (seen below) on April 17th, 2024. The lyrics were:

You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head you fall asleep / Like a tattooed Golden Retriever.

Spread

On April 17th, 2024, X^[2] user @chartstswift posted, "'The Tortured Poets Department' has broken the all-time record for most illegally downloaded album, with 174K downloads." These numbers and this claim are unverified despite the post gathering over 20,000 likes in a day (seen below, left).

Also on April 17th, X^[3] user @avid_original made a post including some of the lyrics supposedly found in the TTPD leaks, including, "Now I’m down bad crying at the gym." The post gathered over 5,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

Internet users also began posting parody leaks of the TTPD album, putting forward random music as though it were from Swift's new album. X^[4]^[5] users @blizzy_mcguire (seen below, top) and @notrubencito (seen below, bottom) made such posts on April 17th, gathering over 1,000 and 4,000 likes, respectively, in one day.