Swift’s chart and legal snag
- Forbes reports Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department reached another chart milestone this week. (forbes.com) - The coverage says this is Swift’s eighth release to hit that particular benchmark. (forbes.com) - Separately, Diario de Mallorca reports a legal challenge to her 'The Life of a Showgirl' branding by artist Maren Wade. (diariodemallorca.es)
Taylor Swift added another long-run chart mark this week as *The Tortured Poets Department* reached 104 weeks on the United Kingdom’s Official Albums Chart. (forbes.com) Forbes reported on April 21 that the album is Swift’s eighth full-length release to spend two full years on that chart. Official Charts lists the album, released on April 19, 2024, among her U.K. entries and says it posted the biggest opening week of any Swift album there. (forbes.com) (officialcharts.com) That U.K. milestone lands while Swift is also dealing with a trademark fight over *The Life of a Showgirl*, the title tied to her newer album and merchandise. Diario de Mallorca reported on April 21 that artist Maren Wade is challenging the branding and that related protection efforts are already being processed in Spain. (diariodemallorca.es) The legal dispute centers on names, not songs. Wade says Swift’s title is too close to Wade’s existing *Confessions of a Showgirl* mark, which Wade says grew out of a Las Vegas Weekly column first published in 2014 and later expanded into a live show and a book. (cbsnews.com) Courthouse News and CBS News both reported that Wade sued Swift in federal court in Los Angeles on March 30, 2026. The complaint says the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had already refused Swift’s application to register *The Life of a Showgirl* because of a likelihood of confusion with Wade’s mark. (courthousenews.com) (cbsnews.com) Billboard reported earlier this month that Wade then asked a judge to block sales of Swift’s *Showgirl* merchandise while the case moves forward. That request targets the commercial rollout around the album name, not Swift’s older catalog. (billboard.com) Swift’s team has not publicly conceded Wade’s claims, and trademark fights often turn on whether buyers are likely to think two brands come from the same source. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says trademark searches and reviews are designed to catch those conflicts before registration. (uspto.gov 1) (uspto.gov 2) The split-screen is unusually stark: one Swift album is still setting endurance marks two years after release, while another title is being tested in court and in trademark offices. For now, the chart run is settled in the U.K.; the *Showgirl* branding fight is not. (forbes.com) (diariodemallorca.es)
