Taylor Swift is facing a lawsuit over her last album, The Life of a Showgirl—from a fellow showgirl.
In the complaint, filed on Monday, Las Vegas-based performer Maren Wade claims that Swift’s hit album bears striking similarities to her own creative work. For years, Wade has written a column in the Las Vegas Weekly newspaper called “Confessions of a Showgirl,” which she expanded into a touring live show with the same name.
On her website, Wade’s show is described as a “one-woman comedic cabaret [featuring] the quirky and hilarious world of a modern-day Vegas showgirl.” Wade also performed on NBC’s America’s Got Talent in 2014, the same year her column began running in the alternative weekly newspaper. Wade registered her “Confessions of a Showgirl” brand with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2015.
“Over the course of a decade, CONFESSIONS OF A SHOWGIRL grew into a brand encompassing performances, writing, and digital media—built by one person, city by city, and show by show,” Wade says in the complaint, which points to the thematic and aesthetic similarities between Swift’s album title and her own show.
“Both share the same structure, the same dominant phrase, and the same overall commercial impression,” the complaint states. Wade argues that after years of toiling to build her own showgirl-themed brand, Swift’s album launch immediately overwhelmed her long-established trademark, drowning it out and giving consumers the impression that “the original is the imitation.” “What Plaintiff had built over twelve years, Defendants threatened to swallow in weeks,” the complaint states.
Fast Company reached out to Swift’s publicity team for comment on the new lawsuit but has not yet received a response.
The Life of 2 Showgirls
In the complaint, Wade claims that the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected Swift’s attempt to register The Life of a Showgirl based on the risk of confusing it with Wade’s already-registered Confessions of a Showgirl trademark. Wade asserts that Swift’s vast legal and brand teams have an intimate knowledge of trademark law, given Swift’s long history of registering trademarks for her own brand.
“Indeed, they are not merely familiar with trademark law—they are among its most vigorous enforcers, having filed multiple federal actions to seize goods from vendors selling trademarked merchandise near concert venues,” the complaint states. “They possess direct knowledge of the harm that trademark infringement inflicts on a brand, having leveraged that very harm in federal court when it served their interests to do so.”
Quickly after the lawsuit went public, Swifties defended the artist in the popular r/TaylorSwift subreddit, pointing to Wade’s past social media posts playfully referencing Swift’s last album. In some of the posts, Wade included #TheLifeOfAShowgirl and #TS12, two hashtags referencing Swift’s music. Wade asked the court to block Swift’s use of the “Showgirl” branding and force Swift to give up all profits earned from “The Life of a Showgirl,” which brought in an estimated $135 million during its first week alone.
Swift, who hit billionaire status in 2023, commands a famously vast collection of trademarks for her business empire. In February, Swift asked the U.S. government to block a home goods company’s branding for a line of bedding called “Swift Home.” In the filing, Swift’s legal team accuses the Swift Home brand of intentionally imitating one of Swift’s trademark logos, a signature with a swoopy cursive “S.”