Taylor Swift and Emma Stone on Dec. 6, 2023. Photo:Todd Williamson/January Images/Shutterstock
One of Taylor Swift’s most famous collaborators on The Tortured Poets Department has never released a single — but has won two Oscars.
For Swift’s new track “Florida!!!” the singer tapped longtime friend and La La Land actress Emma Stone to help with the song, PEOPLE can confirm.
” ‘Florida!!!’ is a song I wrote with Florence and the Machine, and I think I was coming up with this idea of like, what happens when your life doesn’t fit, or your choices you’ve made catch up to you,” Swift told iHeartRadio of creating the song.
The singer highlighted how at times in life “you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment, and circumstances did not lead you to where you thought you’d be and you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever known,” leading one to question “is there a place you could go?”
Swift also said she is “always watching” Dateline and noticed how “people have these crimes that they commit, where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida.”
Emma Stone and Taylor Swift on Aug. 7, 2011.WireImage
“I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks: I want a new name, I want a new life, I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all,” she continued to the outlet. “So that was the jumping-off point behind where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? ‘Florida!!!’ “
Aside from references to hurricanes, hot weather, swamps and even giving a particular shoutout to a “time-share down in Destin,” Florida is also significant as it served as the location for Swift’s first shows returning to The Eras Tour after she and Joe Alwyn split after six years of dating.
“It’s just so important to have people that you trust, and Emma and Selena and I, we’ve had so many things in our lives that have changed over the last couple years, but our friendship has stayed the same. So that’s really good,” Swift noted to Access in 2012 about her friendship with the actress and Selena Gomez.
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Emma Stone and Taylor Swift on April 27, 2008.Jeff Vespa/WireImage
Over the years, Swift continued to support Stone’s acting endeavors, appearing at the premieres of Stone’s Broadway debut in Cabaret, The Favourite (which also starred Alwyn) and Poor Things in 2023.
“Florida!!!” isn’t the first time that Stone’s name has been in the same conversation as Swift’s music.
When the singer released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on July 7, 2023, fans noticed that Stone was likely the inspiration behind the vault track “When Emma Falls in Love,” an assumed reference to the actress’s relationship with Kiernan Culkin from 2010 to 2011. Swift never directly confirmed this reference but did state during an Eras Tour stop in Kansas City that the track was written about one of her best friends.
