Taylor Swift says she’s ‘trained’ her fans to be detectives

Taylor Swift‘s endless game of cat-and-mouse with her fans is, of course, deliberate.

The 29-year-old singer has become just as famous for her endless teasing of music as she has for her actual tunes, and now tells Entertainment Weekly that she’s made her fans become obsessed with figuring out her puzzles.

“I’ve trained them to be that way,” she says of her fans’ detective work, noting that she’s well aware of her followers’ addiction to her clues. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”

Ahead of her release of “Me!,” her latest single with Panic! at the Disco frontman Brendon Urie that debuted at No. 2, Swift teased an endless amount of bright colors and rainbows. Many of her fans thought she was going to come out as bisexual — a rumor that has surrounded Swift for years — and when she didn’t, she was accused of queerbaiting.

“In retrospect, I suppose it’s a little silly I believed Taylor Swift was going to come out of the closet to Robin Roberts during the NFL Draft,” wrote one fan.

“Taylor Swift is the definition of basic. Y’all really surprised she had to queerbait AND steal from Beyonce? She’s got no flavor of her own,” another wrote, referencing Swift’s Billboard Music Awards performance that many felt ripped off Beyoncé’s now-iconic Coachella act.

On EW’s cover, Swift wore a denim jacket with numerous pins referencing pop culture icons. She also sported a rainbow pin, which fans are holding onto once again as a sign that she’ll come out as a member of the LGBTQ community.