Tate McRae might be in the middle of her sold-out Miss Possessive Tour, but that's not stopping her from releasing new music. On September 26, 2025, the Canadian singer released a new single called “Tit for Tat," and fans are already drawing connections to The Kid Laroi.
ICYMI: Though they never publicly announced it, Tate McRae and The Kid Laroi were in a relationship from 2024 until he seemingly confirmed their split in July 2025. “Tit for Tat” is McRae's first release since the reported split, and it seems to be her own take on a breakup anthem.
From the get-go, the song's title, “Tit for Tat,” hints at an “equivalent given in return" or a “retaliation,” which fans are interpreting as a direct response to The Kid Laroi's own breakup-inspired song, "A Cold Play," which he debuted on September 5, 2025, just before the VMAs, where they both performed on stage.
In the opening verse of “A Cold Play," The Kid Laroi sings: “Who was I to think that I could fix you, baby? (Who?) / Who would I be if I didn't miss you, baby? (Who) / I hope that you know you were appreciated / Around my house, I still got up all of our pictures, baby, mm / '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.”
McRae's “Tit for Tat” arrived just three weeks after Laroi dropped “A Cold Play," and the timeframe is precisely one of the reasons why fans are heavily speculating that the singer's new song is a direct response to “A Cold Play.”
Shortly after the song dropped, McRae took to her Instagram stories to share a peek into the process of making the song, where she wrote: “Wrote this song 2 weeks ago in Nashville on tour. Finding inspiration everywhere I go.”
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In the opening lines and chorus of “Tit for Tat,” McRae sings: “Thought I might love you again, see how I feel / Now that you're acting like that, I never will.”
In the first verse, she sings: “We wеre good, I thought we made it through thе ending / I was hearing sh*t I never thought you'd say / Could have picked it up exactly where we left it / Took our future off your plate.”
Fans have noticed lyrical parallels between “A Cold Play” and “Tit for Tat,” particularly referring to the chorus of Laroi's song, where he repeatedly sings “Fix you, fix you, fix you, fix you / Fix you, fix you, fix you, wish I could.”
In the pre-chorus of “Tit for Tat,” fans are speculating that McRae added a direct callback to Laroi's hook when she sings: “Let's go song for song, let's go back to back / Fix your f*cking self, kiss my *ss for that/ That's the best you got, where's the good one at? / Should've known you'd be the type to change.”
Laroi seemingly confirmed his and McRae's breakup in July 2025, responding to a fan post on X where he claimed “Tate and I are on good terms.” While McRae does allude to a “change of narrative” in “Tit for Tat,” it's best to take everything with a grain of salt. Though they might be inspired by real-life events, songs are, after all, a work of art. While it's easy to jump to conclusions and interpret lyrics at face value, we should all remember this is all speculation until any of the parties involved explicitly confirms anything.
