Mikaela Shiffrin Explains Quoting Taylor Swift's 'Ruin The Friendship' in IG Photo After Gold Medal

American alpine skiing superstar Mikaela Shiffrin provided some insight Saturday into why she quoted the Taylor Swift song "Ruin The Friendship" in an Instagram post celebrating her gold medal win in women's slalom at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.

Shiffrin posted a photo of her dominant slalom run and included the caption, "My advice is always ruin the friendship," which is a line from Swift's hit song. Shiffrin even received a comment from Swift, who wrote, "HISTORIC," with three gold medal emojis:

In an interview with People.com's Rachel DeSantis, Shiffrin explained the use of the quote and what it means to her.

"The lyrics go into some loss and regret and things like that, but at the end of the day, when I started out this season listening to the album, I kept putting on 'Ruin The Friendship,' 'cause I'm like, 'This is what I want to feel [when] I'm in the start gate. I want to go. I just want to leave it all behind and ruin the friendship,'" Shiffrin said.

"It's about taking risks, kind of, in my life. That's how I sort of translate it to my life, and that's not always the easiest thing to do. But yeah, it really felt like the right moment."

Shiffrin also gave her thoughts on getting a comment from Swift, calling it "just crazy."

While Shiffrin is the winningest World Cup skier of all time with 108 career wins on that circuit, her Olympic success had been somewhat fleeting prior to this year.

She won gold in slalom at the 2014 Winter Olympics at just 18 years old and followed it up with gold in giant slalom and silver in combined four years later at the 2018 Winter Games.

However, despite being favored in multiple events, Shiffrin did not win a single medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Shiffrin was staring down another medal-less Olympics entering her final event this week, but she rose to the occasion and took gold in the slalom with a commanding margin of victory of 1.50 seconds.

With that triumph, Shiffrin became the first American alpine skier to ever win three career Olympic gold medals.

Shiffrin left it all on the line in order to make history in Italy, and her comments suggest that she received a bit of a helping hand from Swift's powerful lyrics.