Did Robbie Williams just ‘shade’ Olivia Rodrigo over her Christmas single?

'good 4 u' singer Olivia Rodrigo released her own Christmas single on Thursday, followed by the music video the next day, but now people are wondering if fellow artist Robbie Williams has thrown “shade” in the 23-year-old singer’s direction.

Titled 'take me home (4 christmas)', the track sparked comparisons to the track 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses.

Chris Butler, the writer of the festive classic, posted on Facebook last week that Rodrigo emailed him and invited him to listen to her song, and added that it “was/is great” and is “going to be a smash”.

But that wasn’t the only song people were reminded of when listening to 'take me home (4 christmas)', as others thought it sounded a bit like Williams’ 2012 single 'Candy'.

This context prompted people to wonder if a tweet from the singer on Saturday, in which he wished Rodrigo a “happy Christmas” with a kiss at the end, was him throwing “shade” at Rodrigo over the alleged similarity:

“As a brit, take it from me that words can’t fully convey how much that ‘x’ implies lol,” wrote one X/Twitter user:

Another shared a video of the two songs playing back-to-back:

A third wrote: “It's legitimately very funny that Olivia did all that work before the song came out to get The Waitresses guy on her side, only for Robbie Williams to come out of nowhere”:

Both Rodrigo and Williams’ representatives have been approached by indy100 for comment.

Why not read…?

• A new tired Ben Affleck meme has dropped - and we're obsessed
• Documentary made on cancelled Swift concerts over terrorist threat

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.