Taylor Swift is a pop culture icon, a director, and one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time. However, Swifties are convinced that she has also added “author” to her resume, and has already published her first novel—a spy thriller novel written under the alias Elly Conway.
The conspiracy theory has been posited as the solution to the ongoing mystery of Conway and their debut novel. Argylle is both the title of Conway’s novel and an upcoming movie from director Matthew Vaughn. According to Argylle‘s marketing, the movie was inspired by Conway’s novel, which hadn’t even been published when film production commenced. Everyone was desperate to figure out who this incredibly lucky author was who did the unfathomable by nabbing a $200 million movie deal for their unpublished debut book. Aside from an Instagram page with no posts and an extremely vague author bio on Penguin Random House, there was little evidence that Conway even existed.
Things became a little clearer when the first trailer for Argylle dropped, revealing Elly Conway was a fictional character in the film portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard, who writes the series of spy novels in-universe. All of which suggests that the book and Conway are simply a unique marketing strategy. The likeliest explanation was that the book is just a novelization of the movie, using the Conway pseudonym and claiming to be the inspiration for the film to intrigue viewers. However, the novel was actually published on January 9, 2024, meaning someone wrote Argylle under the pseudonym Conway.
Since Vaughn has remained silent on what is actually going on with the Argylle book, and Conway suddenly began posting on Instagram recently, there is some speculation that the author’s true identity is bigger than we think.
Is Taylor Swift secretly Elly Conway?
The theory that Swift is the author behind Argylle actually arose back in October 2023. Back then, Swifties literally had nothing to support this theory beyond the fact that Argylle features a cat that looks similar to cat-lover Swift’s beloved pet. However, Swifties have been carefully compiling more evidence in the months since. After lying dormant for a long time, Conway’s Instagram account suddenly went public, and Swifties were shaken when they saw that the very first post was made on December 13, 2022. Why is that date significant? Well, December 13 happens to be Swift’s birthday. Surely that’s just a coincidence, right?
Swifties continued to latch onto the cat connection, especially since Swift has been spotted using a cat backpack similar to the one seen in Argylle‘s trailer. The cat star in Argylle, named Chip in real life, also follows Swift on Instagram. The singer is one of only 90 accounts that Chip follows on the platform. Plus, it’s hard to believe that an alleged debut author nabbed a movie deal this massive—unless that author was someone major in the first place.
Swifties also found that Swift sells an “Argyle” sweatshirt on her website for $65. Although “argyle” clearly refers to the pattern on the sweatshirt, it might be a clue. She was also seen wearing “Conway Recording Studios” merch. Is this a reference to the studio where she recorded her songs or a reference to Elly Conway?
Conway also posted on her Instagram page about visiting Caffe Reggio, which some fans claim is close to where Swift lives. And, according to commenters, if you look really, really closely at the photos below, you can allegedly see the author’s reflection and that she has blond hair like Swift. Speaking of hair color, fans noticed that red-headed Howard plays Conway in the movie. It can’t be a coincidence that Swift has a whole album titled Red and featured a redhead in her All Too Well short film!
It is actually fairly impressive how Swifties can somehow make a connection between Swift and Conway out of pretty much anything. We have to admit there are at least one or two funny coincidences, but to say this theory is reaching would be an understatement. Still, Swifties have remained so convinced that Swift is Conway that Vaughn actually addressed the theory in an interview with Rolling Stone. Apparently, his own daughter fell down the Swift/Conway rabbit hole, leading Vaughn to deny that Swift is the author behind the book. However, he still insists that there is a real author behind Argylle that has yet to be unveiled. And that’s likely the case: movie novelizations have existed for decades, and are often written by authors or screenwriters who adapt the screenplay into a novel, sometimes adding plot elements and moments that were cut from the original draft.
So, despite her affinity for cats, the color red, and argyle sweaters, Swift does not appear to be Conway. Even so, the true identity of this author is bound to continue stirring outlandish conspiracy theories until we finally get to the bottom of the odd mystery of Conway and Argylle.
(featured image: Jamie McCarthy / Getty)
