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A Las Vegas entertainer called Maren Wade sued Taylor Swift and affiliated business parties for copyright infringement on March 30, according to the lawsuit. Wade claims in the files that the title of Swift's most recent album, The Life of a Showgirl, is too similar to Confessions of a Showgirl, the title of a column Wade claims she began in 2014 and has now expanded into a podcast and live event.
Wade, who previously celebrated the release of Swift's The Life of a Showgirl online, also claims in the lawsuit that she registered the moniker Confessions of a Showgirl with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2015 for amusement purposes.
"After years of continuous use, the mark achieved incontestable status," the lawsuit states, "a statutory recognition of the goodwill Plaintiff earned through her sustained, personal effort." For more than a decade, Confessions of a Showgirl cited a single source: Plaintiff."
However, when The Life of a Showgirl was released in October 2025, the lawsuit claims that "the designation was affixed to consumer goods, stamped onto labels, tags, and packaging, and deployed as a source identifier across retail channels—all directed at the same audience Plaintiff had spent years cultivating."
According to Wade's claim, the two names have the same structure, prominent phrase, and "overall commercial impression," and they target the same audience.
Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that when Swift and her team tried to trademark the album's name, the USPTO "refused on the grounds that Defendants' designation is confusingly similar to Plaintiff's established mark. " Defendants were therefore placed on actual notice that their chosen designation was likely to be confused with a mark that already belonged to someone else.”
Wade's lawsuit includes the following counts: trademark infringement and fraudulent designation of origin.
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction against using the name The Life of a Showgirl in relation to goods or services in a manner likely to cause confusion, as well as a preliminary injunction on the name until the suit is resolved, an order requiring Swift and her team to cease and permanently discontinue use of the name, and an accounting of all profits made related to the name as well as various damages awarded to Wade.
