Everything We Learned From Taylor Swift’s Brutally Honest Rolling Stone Interview
And yes, she talks about Kanye.
Taylor Swift isn’t known for being especially forthcoming in interviews.
The singer has a habit of playing things close to her chest. Her personal life in general, and her relationships in particular, are an out-of-bounds area for journos.
On top of that, most of the time, she’s completely happy to skip the middle man altogether and go straight to her fans, which she does in the form of coded messages and ultra-secret fan meet-ups. Clearly, Swift thinks that the work mostly speaks for itself, and when it doesn’t, she’d prefer to talk to the faithful than the writers who have spent her entire career shrouding her in narratives — sometimes misogynistic ones — that she has outright rejected.
But every so often, it’s important to reset the narrative, and that wiping of the slate has defined the roll-out of Swift’s new album Lover. After years of silence, she’s finally addressed her critics, reclaimed her political opinion from the alt-right trolls who have attempted to champion her, and given an insight into her songwriting process.
And nowhere has she been more honest than in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, one of the most important of her career.
Here’s everything we learned from it.
She Thought About Quitting Music
The last three years have been tough for Swift — that much has always been clear. What might have been less clear is how close the singer considered packing up her things and going home.
“People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t really need very many reasons to do it,” Swift says. “I felt like the situation was pretty hopeless.”
Later on, Swift admits that she usually “cannot stand it” when people can’t take criticism. That only made the unrelenting attacks on her from certain corners of the press that much harder to take; she knew she had to look at changing something, but how to do that without changing too much of herself?
“I really try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me,” Swift says. “And I completely get why people wouldn’t like me. Because, you know, I’ve had my insecurities say those things — and things 1,000 times worse.”
For Swift, the solution was to totally unplug. “I, for a very long time, I didn’t have the internet on my phone, and my team and my family were really worried about me because I was not in a good place.”
? | Taylor Swift on the cover of @RollingStone over the years
2009 / 2012 / 2014 / 2019 pic.twitter.com/NasvsUrIkF
— Taylor Swift News (@TSwiftNZ) September 18, 2019
Taylor’s Back-And-Forth With Kanye Is Deeper Than That One Phone Call
At the centre of Swift’s personal storm is her incredibly public back-and-forth with singer Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian. West, who came hurtling into Swift’s orbit at the 2009 VMA’s when he wrenched the microphone off her to praise Beyoncé, name-checked her in a misogynistic and unfair line in his song ‘Famous’.
When Swift rebutted the line, Kardashian declared war, sharing a surreptitious recording of West appearing to clear the sentiment of the song with the ‘Bad Blood’ singer. Only, Swift claims to have had no knowledge of the line that really hurt — “I made that bitch famous” — and refused to back down from the pain it caused her.
Now, Swift has claimed that the controversy was born from more than just one phone call. “All I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me,” she says.
“When someone doesn’t respect you so loudly and says you literally don’t deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, ‘This guy who’s antagonising me, I just want his approval.'”
Swift then goes on to reveal a story about the 2015 VMA’s. Before the ceremony, the singer claims that West called her up and asked her to officially present him with the Vanguard award, going into detail and listing all the reasons that it would mean so much to him. Then, on the night of the awards, after Swift had delivered her speech, West stood up in front of the cameras and claimed that the whole thing had just been a desperate stunt by the VMA’s for ratings.
Actual footage of Kanye West telling to the crowd Taylor Swift is the one who will present the award because she got more ratings. pic.twitter.com/7cEj3cuxwS
— Taylor Swift Facts (@blessedswifty) September 18, 2019
For Swift, that was the turning point — and she notes that others have experienced the same thing.
“[West] did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake’s family and their lives. It’s the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you.”
Taylor Knew She’d Have To Talk About Politics Eventually
Like many left-leaning Americans, the 2016 U.S. election was a wake-up call for Swift. But a lot of that waking up happened in private, away from reporters, in a way that gave space for the right-wing trolls trying to claim her.
“Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won,” Swift says.
“We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House.”
That renewed political focus has translated into Swift throwing her energy behind candidates in the 2020 race, and her attempt to work out exactly how she can help. “I’m just focused on the 2020 election,” she says.
“I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.”
Oh, and for those still confused, Swift just came right out and said in: white supremacy is “literally the worst thing ever”.
So there you have it.
Taylor Thought Scooter Braun Was Her Mentor. He Wasn’t.
One of Swift’s more recent controversies revolves around Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber’s manager, who now infamously owns most of her masters. After Swift publicly condemned the sale of her music, her former Big Machine Records label head Scott Borchetta shot back at her, sharing incidents from their past.
In the interview, Swift deliberately doesn’t trade barbs, but she does reveal that Braun was someone she once looked up to. “I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family,” Swift says.
“To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of ‘Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.’”
Taylor’s Never Gone To Therapy
Given the malestrom that she’s been in for the last three years, you’d think Swift might turn to therapy. Instead, she turned to her mother.
“I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything,” she says.
“There were times when I used to have really, really, really bad days where we would just be on the phone for hours and hours and hours. I’d write something that I wanted to say, and instead of posting it, I’d just read it to her.”
And of course, there’s the process of sitting down for the Rolling Stone itself, which Swift says helps, strangely.
Although, maybe it’s just that she’s generally happier and healthier than she has been in years. “A couple of years ago I started working on actually just responding to my emotions in a quicker fashion,” she says. “And it’s really helped with stuff.”
Read the full interview with Rolling Stone here.