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George Michael’s Estate Responds to His Credit on Taylor Swift’s New Song ‘Father Figure’
Taylor Swift is paying tribute to a pop legend on her highly anticipated new album, The Life of a Showgirl. The singer-songwriter, 35, credited the late George Michael as a songwriter on her track “Father Figure,” a nod to Michael’s iconic 1987 hit of the same name. And now his estate is responding.
In a October 2 Instagram post, the estate writes: “We were delighted when Taylor Swift and her team approached us earlier this year about incorporating an interpolation of George Michael’s classic song ‘Father Figure’ into a brand new song of the same title to be featured on her forthcoming album. When we heard the track we had no hesitation in agreeing to this association between two great artists and we know George would have felt the same. George Michael Entertainment wishes Taylor every success with The Life of a Showgirl and Father Figure.”
Swift’s version isn’t a straight cover. Instead, it reportedly interpolates elements of Michael’s original, earning him a writing credit alongside Swift’s frequent collaborators Max Martin and Shellback. “Father Figure” appears as the fourth track on the 12-song album, set to drop October 3, 2025, and fans are already buzzing online about the surprising connection between two eras of pop music.
Fans are loving the nod to the ’80s icon, who passed away in 2016. “Do y’all understand how rare it is for Taylor to sample a song,” one user wrote on X. Another added, “George Michael on a Taylor album is the crossover I never saw coming but fully support forever.” A third chimed in, “I’m SO happy, George Michael was a GENIUS! Rest in Peace n’ Leather, king 🖤.
With this album, Swift is proving her knack for merging past and present influences to craft her own narrative. In her appearance on the “New Heights” podcast — hosted by her fiancé, NFL star Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason Kelce — she revealed not only the album title, but also the tracklist, cover art, and release date.
During the podcast, Swift shared insight into the album’s aesthetic, explaining how it reflects her behind-the-scenes experience of the Eras Tour. “My day ends with me in a bathtub, not usually in a bedazzled dress,” she said. “I wanted to glamorize all the different aspects of how the tour felt.” She added, “The reason I wanted to have an offstage moment as the main album cover is because the album isn’t really about what happened to me onstage, but what I was going through offstage.”
Asked by Jason why she chose orange for the color scheme of the album, Swift said, “I’ve just always liked it, Jason.”
“It feels like kind of energetically how my life has felt, and this album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant,” she said.
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