Taylor Swift makes big change to ‘Better than revenge’ song lyrics on new version of Speak Now album

For her new re-record of Better Than Revenge, Taylor Swift has reportedly softened a vicious old lyric about her ex’s latest girlfriend.

In the midst of her legal battle with Scooter Braun over her original masters, Taylor decided years ago to re-record all of her old albums, releasing new ‘Taylor’s Versions’ to which she would own the rights.

Tomorrow, fans will be treated to ‘Taylor’s Version’ of her 2010 album Speak Now, which included the original edition of Better Than Revenge.

The old lyric – which has now been discarded in favor of a more politically correct line – went: ‘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.’ 

However Page Six reports that the ‘mattress’ jab has been replaced with: ‘He was a moth to the flame. She was holding the matches, whoa.’

Stagestruck: Taylor is currently whirling around the world on her Eras Tour, for which she is pictured playing a gig at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in May

Evidently a smattering of fans have managed to sneak a listen to Taylor’s Version of Speak Now prior to its official debut on Friday.

At the time of its first release in 2010, Better Than Revenge was widely presumed to be about Taylor’s ex Joe Jonas and his subsequent flame Camilla Belle.

Over the course of the intervening decade, however, Taylor developed a friendly rapport with Joe, who is currently married to Game Of Thrones star Sophie Turner.

Taylor has also, in recent years, vented her frustration about being on the business end of ‘slut-shaming’ during her 20s.

‘I was 23 and people were… making slideshows of my dating life and putting people in there that I’d sat next to at a party once and deciding that my songwriting was a trick rather than a skill and a craft,’ she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. 

‘It’s a way to take a woman who’s doing her job and succeeding at doing her job… [and] completely minimize that skill by slut-shaming her.’

She noted that she was absorbing the remarks ‘at a very young age, so that was a bit hard. That was one of the first times I was like: “Wow, this is not fair.”‘

In 2021, Taylor’s fans were flew into a rage when a character on the Netflix sitcom Ginny & Georgia joked: ‘You go through men faster than Taylor Swift.’

Remember when: Evidently a smattering of fans have snuck a listen to Taylor’s Version of Speak Now prior to its official debut on Friday; the cover for the original album is pictured

Throwback: Better Than Revenge was presumed to be about Taylor’s ex Joe Jonas and his subsequent flame Camilla Belle; Taylor and Joe are pictured in 2008

The way they were: Joe, who is now married to Game Of Thrones star Sophie Turner, is pictured out with Camilla in West Hollywood in 2009

‘Swifties,’ as her admirers are affectionately known, raked the show over the coals on the internet for ‘slut-shaming’ their idol.

Taylor herself fumed on Twitter: ‘Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back. How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horse s**t as FuNnY.’

The new version of Speak Now will also include a re-record of the song Dear John, which Taylor performed onstage live last month for the first time in 11 years.

Dear John, with its scathing lyrics about an ex’s ‘sick need to give love then take it away,’ was overwhelmingly regarded as being about John Mayer.

After the song reentered the public eye last month, Taylor begged her fans not to ‘defend’ her against John, but they ignored her pleas and began denouncing him online as a ‘groomer’ because he was 33 and she was 19 when they dated.