No, Taylor Swift Didn’t Write the ‘Argylle’ Novel

So long as the Taylor Swift fanbase exists (and at this point, it will probably outlive God), we can probably consider doing away with the detective profession and just rely on the Swifties—whose dot-connecting abilities are increasingly more utilitarian.

But not all leads are solid ones, and Matthew Vaughn has handed the Taylor Swift fanbase its latest failed case by confirming that the pop culture titan was not, in fact, responsible for writing the companion novel for his upcoming film Argylle.

Speaking with Rolling Stone, Vaughn disclosed that, while Swift did inspire bits and pieces of the film (namely Alfie the cat, who’s of the same breed as Swift’s own feline), she was not the true alias of whoever the real-life Elly Conway is.

There is a real book … and it’s a really good book. And there is an Elly Conway who wrote the book, but it’s not Taylor Swift. And I say that because I imagine Taylor Swift has a load of people trying to jump on her bandwagon left, right, and center. I don’t want to be a part of that club. I did read the conspiracies and I was like, ‘Wow, they don’t leave a stone unturned!’ But it’s not Taylor Swift. She definitely didn’t write the book.

It will be disappointing news for some, but kudos to Vaughn for not taking the Chaotic Evil route and feeding into the conspiracy for the sake of what would have been an unprecedented marketing opportunity, which Argylle has probably benefited from already anyway.

Of course, the cast of Argylle is fantastic marketing in its own right; the film stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway, a novelist known for her spy fiction series Argylle, who becomes wrapped up in a high-stakes government conspiracy when it’s revealed that everything she writes in her Argylle books is suspiciously close to real-world events. Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Sofia Boutella, Rob Delaney, Jing Lusi, and Richard E. Grant also star.

Argylle hits theaters on February 2.

(featured image: Universal Pictures)