Keleigh Teller knows her BFF Taylor Swift is a real tough kid.
But it doesn't make it any easier to watch her friend go through hard times—much of which are documented in Taylor's newest album The Tortured Poets Department. In fact, when Keleigh recently asked fans which TTPD song is their favorite, she revealed her own thoughts behind "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart."
"As a friend, this one hurts so much," Keleigh wrote on her April 19 TikTok in response to a fan who named the song as their number one. "She goes on stage sad or happy it's so incredible."
And indeed, the lyrics to the track follow the Grammy winner as she continues to perform while dealing with a breakup—most likely her spring 2023 split from boyfriend of six years Joe Alwyn, which occurred shortly after the start of her Eras tour.
Or as she sings in the chorus, "All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, 'More' / I was grinning like I'm winning, I was hitting my marks / 'Cause I can do it with a broken heart."
In fact, The Tortured Poets Department's 31 songs often air on the sadder side—a fact both Keleigh, who is married to Miles Teller, and fans took note of.
"As an empath this album wrecked me," a fan added on Keleigh's video, to which she replied, "Same."
It's a reaction Taylor herself more or less expected. In exclusive TTPD commentary released for Amazon Music, the "Cruel Summer" singer detailed the album's darker undertones.
"It's a very fatalistic album," she shared, "in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death. ‘I love you, it's ruining my life.' These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. It's that kind of album."
And in addition to chronicling the ups and downs of love, Taylor describes a hard to swallow truth about the realities of life in the spotlight as an artist.
"What do we do to our writers, and our artists, and our creatives?" she named as some of the album's broader questions. "We put them through hell. We watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to the point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain and we just watch what happens."
Keep reading for even more about the The Tortured Poets Department.