The battle of Nashville: Ella Langley smiles alongside Taylor Swift... but insiders say she plans to expose the secret that'll bring down pop's biggest star

The teenager turned up in Nashville with a guitar slung across her chest and a head full of dreams. Talented and beautiful, country claimed her as one of its own, but a string of smash hits took her name far beyond the borders of Tennessee.

Taylor Swift, who travelled that road 20 years ago, has company.

Ella Langley's single Choosin' Texas has now spent 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 – equaling records set by Whitney Houston, with I Will Always Love You, and Mariah Carey with We Belong Together.

Back in May, Langley's song surpassed Swift's 2012 hit We Are Never Getting Back Together for the most weeks at number one by a female country artist. Asked what that milestone meant, Langley, country to the core, declared: 'It means that my head's spinning around like an owl.' She added, in her Alabama drawl: 'You ever seen that? It's pretty scary. It's nuts. I'm just excited.'

The comparisons between Langley and Swift, two Nashville-breakouts, are inevitable.

It's led some to wonder if it's just coincidence that Swift's latest single, I Knew It, I Knew You, the Toy Story 5 theme, is a return to her country roots. Certainly, one industry insider suggested to the Daily Mail that it might be an indication of Swift asserting her dominance in the genre.

'Taylor could never let someone else have the country throne,' the source said. 

'She wanted to make it clear that if there's a woman that's going to dominate the country charts it won't be Beyoncé and it won't be Ella,' the source said. 

There is no evidence of any animosity between the two women, but one thing is clear – if anyone is dominating the country scene right now it's Langley, who landed in the number one spot on the Daily Mail's most powerful people in Nashville ranking.

The catchily wistful Choosin' Texas, is one of the songs of the summer – boosted by a slick video, viewed almost 57 million times since its April release.

And it isn't Langley's only hit right now. Three of the top ten in the Billboard 100 are currently hers: her new duet with the controversial Morgan Wallen, I Can't Love You Anymore, is riding high at number seven and the two are the first country duo to make the top 10 since Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

Earlier this year, Langley became the first woman ever to top the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts simultaneously, thanks to the strongly Dollyesque hit Choosin' Texas.

Langley is not just breaking boundaries, she's smashing them. But she's staying firmly country in the process.

Let's not forget that, as far as Swift is concerned, some rancor in Nashville remains among country fans who feel that Swift abandoned them in favor of pop stardom.

'The radio programmers have to say they're excited about I Knew It, I Knew You and have to immediately play her song - it's Taylor. But the country fans still remember that she left,' an insider explained.

And it's those fans to whom Langley is playing in more ways than one. 

Swift is now openly backing Democrat candidates and causes. Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris both espouse progressive views. And Kelsea Ballerini is a champion of LGBTQ rights and women's issues, who brought drag queens on stage to protest Tennessee's 2023 law against children watching drag shows.

In November 2024, she said she wanted to be 'a good person first, good artist second.'

In contrast, the source speculated that one of the reasons Langley is riding high is because she steers clear of politics, cannily playing her cards close to her chest.

'Ella is winning because she panders to the country music fan base,' the source said. 'She plays it safe. She's not speaking out on important topics like a Kelsea Ballerini, Kacey Musgraves or Maren Morris.'

She has also bolstered her country roots by leaning unapologetically into her Christian faith. Speaking with podcaster Theo Von in April, she said that reading the Bible 'really centers me and reminds me what's important in my life,' and told him about being terrified by a Christian haunted house, one Halloween, where 'sinners' were confronted by the devil.

'I remember our youth group took us,' she told Von. 'You get in there, and it's like this car crash scene, and it's pretty much like convincing you that you could die the second you walk out of here, so you better settle up. You better get saved.'

Langley credits her childhood for her musical talent – and her toughness.

'I grew up in the country in Alabama between two rowdy brothers, so I spent a lot of my childhood trying to prove that I was as fearless and tough as they were,' she said, referencing brothers Thomas, now 35, and 25-year-old Stuart. She also has a sister, Katie, 19, who is studying at Auburn University in Alabama.

'My band or anyone who knows me will tell you that sometimes I can seem more like a guy than a girl, but I think women can still be tough, direct and strong, without apologizing for who they are or how they think,' added Langley.

The foursome's parents, Jason, who owns a car and machinery repair firm and his wife Heather, a self-described 'Alabama Mama' – raised their children on the family farm.

Langley said her grandparents were also a powerful influence.

'My grandparents on my dad's side were super musically inclined,' she told local Alabama news site WSFA. 'My grandpa would always play the piano. Before I could even talk, they would sit me down on the piano and I would hum to whatever he was playing.'

Langley in April shared an old video of her grandfather playing Froggy Went a' Courting on the guitar, and her as a toddler, in a tutu-style skirt, jumping around the kitchen.

Langley's 24-second recording of the song is the intro to her latest album, Dandelion.

Promoting Dandelion she told podcaster Von: 'I was the first girl in the family, and I started to match pitch with [my grandma] as a baby. And so, she figured out I could sing, and singing was her thing. And my grandpa could play any instrument by ear, and so at their house, that's all we did.

'I sang at church a lot. I learned how to read from singing hymnals. I really, just the whole time, like, my whole family, we all just were like, "This is what she's gonna do."'

Swift, who moved to Nashville from Pennsylvania at the age of 14, had a head start.

Langley on finishing high school began a course in forestry at Auburn University, moving in the fall of 2017 to the city an hour from her tiny Hope Hull hometown, south of Montgomery.

Soon she'd joined a top sorority, Phi Mu, known as the 'Southern Sweetheart' group for its beautiful, socially aware members – and was happily posting photos of campus life and Spring Break.

In April 2019, she shared excited photos of herself with her future roommates, saying she was looking forward to living with them in the fall.

But in July 2019 she abruptly left Alabama and moved 300 miles away to neighboring Tennessee, shipping her taxidermy deer kill to a new Nashville home.

Perhaps the signs were there all along. She has long said music was always her destiny: 'When I was a kid, I was never like, I'm going to be a veterinarian or a police officer,' she said. 'I was like I'm going to do this. I don't know when it's going to happen but it's going to happen.'

And in June 2018, she posted to Instagram a photo of herself by Nashville's famous WhatLiftsYou wings mural, with the caption: 'So I'm never coming home.'

In the years since moving to Nashville, Langley's image has become decidedly more polished. 'This job is not something that you can sort of half ass,' she said in an Instagram clip on May 20. 'You have to go full force.'

Gone are the camo-clad photos with her father proudly posing with deer they have shot, and in their place are private jets and stadium soundchecks.

In May 2024, she abandoned her center parting in favor of heavy bangs, which are now her trademark – along with her evolution towards a Stevie Nicks-influenced 1970s chic, with rhinestone-encrusted heeled cowboy boots and voluminous floaty sleeves.

It's a much-copied look, with hairdressers reporting a surge in demand for a replica of her glossy tousled locks.

And it's not just women who are reeled in: online memes celebrate slack-jawed men, known as 'Ella's Fellas,' who discover the Southern charmer for the first time.

Not all is new, though. The horses and dogs remain, as do underlined passages of the Bible, frequently posted online.

Certainly Langley has maintained her 'good girl' image and despite rumors of a fledgling 'love triangle' earlier this year.

Langley and 37-year-old Riley Green, who sings with her on You Look Like You Love Me, held hands as they walked on to the stage to collect their Academy of Country Music award for the song.

The camera then cut to another country star, 28-year-old Megan Moroney, who had been rumored to be interested in Green, looking stone-faced.

But all three have insisted they are single. Langley has never confirmed any relationships, and last week told the Calgary Stampede that she ignored all the background noise.

'With social media, you can see into everyone's lives - and you feel behind, or not good enough, or not pretty enough, or not cool enough, or you can't sing this way or dance this way. Who gives a s***? This is who I am, and this is what you get' she said. 

'And the one person that I do care about what thinks about me is the man upstairs, and that's it. And I know that He loves me no matter where I'm at.'