Did Taylor Swift Steal This ’30 Rock’ Joke for One of Her Hit Songs?
Was Taylor Swift singing about Cristin Milioti when she remarked that, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby”? And why the hell was “Anti-Hero” a bigger hit than “Muffin Top?”
It’s probably best for everyone that Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock is a fictional character and not a real-life actress/singer, because we can’t imagine the diabolical acts of sabotage she would commit against Taylor Swift for the latter’s crime of being blonder, younger and more successful than the TGS star. Additionally, the fact that Swift’s insane level of cultural influence drew massive attention to a certain 30 Rock episode would probably cause Jenna’s nose to start gushing blood before the screams start. But when Swift’s single “Anti-Hero” skyrocketed to the top of the charts featuring a lyric that’s suspiciously reminiscent of a certain 30 Rock joke in 2022, that’s exactly what happened to the 2011 episode “TGS Hates Women,” featuring grown-up actress Cristin Milioti in the role of the self-infantilizing and sexually charged guest writer Abby Flynn.
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In a recent conversation with SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show With Julia Cunningham, Milioti, now 39 and boasting a number of acclaimed performances on hit sitcoms under her big-girl belt, reflected on how one lyric in Swift’s song placed her smack-dab in the center of a pop-culture debate over whether Swift swiped Milioti’s line in the iconic 30 Rock scene to help her write Mike Birbiglia’s first music video.
In “TGS Hates Women,” TGS head writer Liz Lemon hires Milioti’s character to bring a fresh female perspective into her male-dominated writers’ room, only to find that Abby doesn’t fit the hard-nosed, conservative ideal for what Liz subconsciously believes a feminist should be. Bouncing around in short skirts and low-cut tops while giggling in a put-on, high-pitched timbre, Abby entices the male staffers at TGS while irritating Liz to the point where she pushes Abby to drop the act and stop acting like a “sexy baby,” prompting the now-famous and possibly-quoted-by-Taylor-Swift response, “I’m a verrry sexy baaaby!”
When Cunningham asked Milioti if she believed that Swift got the phrase “sexy baby” from Milioti’s 30 Rock performance, the actress was wisely evasive. “When that album dropped, my phone really blew up with people asking about that, and I don’t know," Milioti said of Swift’s album Midnights, which contained the track at the center of the mystery. “I mean, in my wildest (dreams), that would be a compliment. I would love that to be true. I have no confirmation if it is.”
Whether or not her work on 30 Rock inspired one of Swift’s hottest tracks, Milioti says that her performance on the NBC sitcom is one of the proudest moments of her career. “That’s a show I binge if I’m on location somewhere or if it’s like a cold, dark winter. I can watch it over and over and over," Milioti gushed of 30 Rock. "I watched that show in real time every week and was obsessed with that show.”
“(I was) basically in hot pants in New York on my favorite TV show, getting to do this character,” Milioti recalled of the famous “sexy baby” scene. “I was like so excited to make that voice and to have the crazy wig and those crazy costumes that I got to wear. That’s one of the things I’m the most proud of hands down. Loved that show and (it) was such a pinch-me moment.”
Apparently, being on 30 Rock is a bigger honor than Taylor Swift subtly referencing you in a hit song. I’m sure John Mayer would agree if he had ever secured a cameo.
