Tate McRae’s hot and sexy VMAs performance this year wasn’t the only surprise she had in store for fans. “Song for song, back to back,” and lyric for lyric, McRae goes “TIT FOR TAT” with her brand new single. Writing the song in Nashville while on her sold-out Miss Possessive Tour is not a side quest every artist can pull off, especially when it comes to topping your “ex’s” song about you. It’s obvious that the once-sweetly unexpected couple now has beef, and McRae and The Kid LAROI are over. Just in case you were skeptical of the alleged breakup, their latest singles are showing all the “signs” that this musical couple has ended their harmony together—after all, maybe they don’t “know love.”
Taking the saying “tit for tat” at face value, the intentions here are crystal clear, so take a seat and prepare to be stunned at the similar energy these ex-lovers’ songs give.
If you’re familiar with Laroi’s writing style, you know he only uses all caps for his song titles. McRae is the opposite, as most of hers are written in lowercase. She knew she had to title her song in all caps so the fans KNEW—and just to mess with him that much more, since he seems to be having fun with all those girls in his music videos. Her “cold heart was finally melting,” so why’d he have to go “make it messy”? First he ruins it with his little “HOT GIRL PROBLEMS” song, and now “A COLD PLAY”? I’m curious if one of the girls in the music video answered McRae’s phone call that night, but we’ll dissect that thought later.
In “HOT GIRL PROBLEMS,” he says, “Love can’t keep her / She makes sure you see her.” Yeah, Kid, we do love her, and we’ll make sure we see her on tour, not you. Hurts, doesn’t it? He follows with, “Now you out drinkin’ and takin’ lil’ pictures with your fans, girl, whatever works (whatever, ayy)”…shaming her for living her best life? Last time we checked, McRae is just as famous, if not more famous than you now, and she’s gonna enjoy it. Besides, you said so yourself in “GIRLS,” “Girls just wanna dance, girls just wanna have fun,” right?
Laroi’s latest single, “A COLD PLAY,” isn’t bad, but the fact that it’s about our girl Tate doesn’t sit right with me. Laroi may have started the viral tea with his song, but “TIT FOR TAT” was literal TEA.
Both of their videos were released on September 26, so we know it’s not just a coincidence. (The only coincidence here is the fact that the day “A COLD PLAY” was released, McRae sang “Fix you” by Coldplay, alluding to the reoccurring word choice and overall theme of Laroi’s song.) McRae’s song came out at midnight, and Laroi’s video came out later that day. This is when the drama spiked, becoming personal and PUBLIC! Since Laroi’s song, “A COLD PLAY,” came out on September 5, it seems “Tatiana” had enough of the silence and decided it was time to clap back. It’s almost like Laroi knew she would do this and was even waiting for her response (which did better on the charts). Then, he pulled the sticky move of releasing his music video the same day she released her song, with tears and all (it’s giving whining, not winning.) Who knows if McRae will drop a music video for this diss, since she already won with her song itself.
If McRae does drop a video, I predict it’ll be a crazy collab with Ariana Grande. They were spotted at the VMAs together, hitting it off so hard that Laroi couldn’t watch, and even had to leave his seat. It doesn’t help seeing his ex-girlfriend with his dream collab, as he revealed in July 2025. McRae recently updated her profile picture to a black-and-white photo of her covering her face, which is Grande’s aesthetic and signature pose, possibly hinting at a new song for them both. If this rumor doesn’t feel like a slap in the face for him, a collaboration between these two artists would be the biggest “kisses to my exes” moment!
At beginning of “TIT FOR TAT,” McRae sings “The day I met you, boy, I thought it was a blessing / In the heat of it, I always took your side / It’s a shame you out here tryna make it messy / Wow, you’re messy, damn,” making it clear that by dropping all of these songs, he isn’t helping wherever they stand. He could’ve had another chance with Tatiana, but he had to release a new track instead, which was more of a miss than a diss.
McRae always described Laroi as perfect and a blessing with that frenemies-to-lovers vibe, as there was always a strange tension between them before. McRae admitted in the iHeartRadio Podcast “Las Culturistas,” with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, “We were in the same friend group and we hung out all the time, but we never had one non-awkward experience.” She would trip, try to dap him up, or say something odd. She even went as far as revealing that Laroi questioned, “Why do my friends like Tate?” and she wondered, “Why do my friends like Laroi, and how do we all get along?” It wasn’t until they both happened to be in Cabo at the same time without their friends that they met up, and their relationship as frenemies began to blossom into lovers—everything “clicked” for them.
Laroi says in “A COLD PLAY,” “You said to me, baby, you was all in / I think we just probably should’ve stayed friends / I think that we probably could’ve saved tears (and saved years).” It’s pretty ironic that he would blame her, considering HE hit HER up while in Cabo. They were in this together, and who knows who wanted space first, but we know who released what when they shouldn’t have, and it just doesn’t look good for Laroi.
Despite not being spotted together in public by paparazzi for weeks, fans assumed they were just too busy to unite and had lots going on, which was true. When he released songs about getting hurt, including “A COLD PLAY,” fans began to finally connect the dots of their breakup.
While McRae was out performing the international leg of her tour, Laroi kept releasing songs as she stayed; “Nothing but respectful, and you know that, why you changing up the narrative to write? / No I can’t do this, you’re making me do this, if you want to fight.” If Laroi thought this “revenge” would distract McRae from her new success, he thought wrong. Instead of making a sappy song, she calmly clapped back at her old lover. She said so herself—she wasn’t trying to fight, and she doesn’t describe herself as confrontational, but if he wants to act like a dog, she’ll finish the fight.
As Laroi alluded to in “A COLD PLAY” with the lyrics “Who was I to think that I could fix you, baby? (Who?) / Who would I be if I didn’t miss you, baby? (Who),” there was so much missing and not enough “fixing.” And her roast in response? “Fix your fucking self, kiss my ass for that / That’s the best you got, where’s the good one at / Should’ve known you’d be the type to change.” Basically, if you’re gonna write a song about her, at least make it your best.
If nothing else answers our questions about their beef, these lyrics are quite the anecdote. It’s no secret that McRae has been hurt before, and maybe her way of coping with it doesn’t align with Laroi’s. However, this doesn’t mean she needs “fixed.” Besides, McRae seems to be doing quite good for herself.
Yeah, and he still follows her on social media, too. In fact, he only follows one person on TikTok, and it’s her, even after these songs dropped. This is uniquely why people couldn’t exactly assume there was any bad blood. Even since he told the media when asked, that he and McRae were on “good terms.” But with these songs, now we sure got some “Blood on our Hands.” Speaking of TikTok, Laroi teased his fans with his new music video on the platform, as he lip synced the song, doing so wearing a PITT NURSING HOODIE? I don’t know whether to be shocked or offended. Pitt’s Nursing program may be #4 in the country, but his song definitely wasn’t…not even anywhere near it.
McRae can’t relate because not only did her song, that released 2 weeks after his, reach #1 on the Apple Music and Spotify charts, but it reached 4.3 million streams within its first 24 hours, and 30 million in its first week. This easily surpassed her own record of “Greedy” when it was first released. McRae has become the first female artist of 2025 to reach this number with various songs in the same year. Good try, Kid, but it’s time for someone to be an adult here!
The bridge of “TIT FOR TAT” goes, “That looks like it really hurts / That bruise on your ego / I know that it makes it worse / It had to be me, though,” and I’m sure it does with all those tears and not a lot of streams on his songs. No matter how painful, nothing is worse than losing the queen herself.
Still not convinced? They even put the situation on blast in the song. Maybe the reason why they didn’t publicly announce their breakup is because they wanted time, space, and a little something called privacy. However, it was wraps for our favorite new couple when McRae revealed in her lyrics, “Thought I might love you again, see how I feel / Now that you’re acting like that, I never will / Last night, she answered my call, it sealed the deal / Right now, I’m not even about you.”
ICK! Of course McRae would feel a certain way if they were on a break and Laroi proceeded to make her look like the bad guy, when no one really knows what was going on behind that “revolving door.” Perhaps she got cheated on again? So who really needs the fixing?
In reference to their alleged distance from each other, McRae gets real with it; “We wеre good, I thought we made it through thе ending / I was hearing shit I never thought you’d say / Could have picked it up where we left it / Took our future off your plate.” If Laroi is gonna treat her like that, then she’s gonna go save her dessert for someone else.
Who knows, if Laroi could have just sat still a bit longer and waited for McRae to finish up her “chaotic” tour, then maybe she could have saved him a seat in her life, still. She said it herself, “I was never as never as far away as you thought.” How could Laroi have known, though, he’s just a Kid anyway.
Laroi shamed her for “partying too much” in his song “HOT GIRL PROBLEMS,” so she ended him with the mic drop, “Right now, I’m partying without you.” Notice anything about her wording? She said it twice, just in case you or the kid didn’t hear. “WITHOUT YOU” is one of Laroi’s biggest hits; they even sang on stage together during McRae’s Think Later Tour at Madison Square Garden, and he was the special guest, not the star of the show!
Laroi even wrote about this time of his life when showing support for her; “‘Cause I still love you, that’s how I feel at my core / Flew different states to come see you in between tour / I gave you everything I had and even more.” He did give everything, including drama, when they were most likely going to be okay anyway.
All in all, TATE MCRAE WINS, and still has nothing to lose! What’s the prize, you may ask…well, it’s her! How do you fumble Tate McRae? Who knows, but it looks like someone got a little too “greedy”! It’s ok, she’s ok. She would want herself too. Now, if you need to reach me, I’ll be over here playing “TIT FOR TAT” on repeat.