Taylor Swift is one of the most powerful women in the world and was just named Time’s Person of the Year.
In her first interview in years, Swift, who usually saves personal anecdotes for fans to decode in her music, is opening up about the challenges she has faced, dealing with cancel culture and taking shots at Hollywood adversaries like Kim Kardashian and Scooter Braun.
Swift also opens up about her new boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, as their relationship has seemingly captivated the entire world.
TAYLOR SWIFT, TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR, SAYS TRAVIS KELCE WON HER OVER ON HIS ‘NEW HEIGHTS’ PODCAST
Taylor Swift poses with her cat Benjamin Button on one of three covers for Time. (Inez and Vinoodh for TIME)
Travis Kelce romance
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she divulged to Time. “We started hanging out right after that. So, we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other.
“By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple,” she said of her appearance at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City Sept. 24. “I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.”
At the game, Swift was photographed in a suite looking jovial alongside Kelce’s mother, Donna.
Taylor Swift and Donna Kelce cheered on Travis Kelce at Arrowhead Stadium Sept. 24. (Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
“I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in,” she said of photographers. “There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once.”
She continued to open up about their romance, sharing, “I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and p—ing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”
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Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift first started hanging out after the tight end called her out on his podcast. (Gotham/Getty Images)
Despite keeping her prior relationship with actor Joe Alwyn under wraps, Taylor is not holding back with Travis.
“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves. We’re showing up for each other, other people are there, and we don’t care,” Swift declared. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”
Taylor Swift was named Time Person of the Year. (Inez and Vinoodh for TIME)
Cancel culture
“I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years,” Swift said of the public’s inclination to cancel her. “I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away.” Swift believes she’s been “canceled within an inch” of her “life and sanity.”
The songstress was embattled in her first real scandal in 2016 when Kanye “Ye” West released his song “Famous,” with crass lyrics referencing Swift. West claimed Swift had consented to the lyrics, which she denied.
Kim Kardashian released a recording of Kanye West speaking with Taylor Swift about the song “Famous.” (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
“I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots,” Swift said of that time. “Make no mistake. My career was taken away from me.
Kim Kardashian, West’s wife at the time, released a recording that seemed to prove Swift was aware of the song the “Cruel Summer” singer says was manipulated.
“You have a fully manufactured frame job in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” Swift told the outlet.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.
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Taylor Swift says what Kim Kardashian and Kanye West did to her took her “down psychologically.” (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
“Over the years, I’ve learned I don’t have the time or bandwidth to get pressed about things that don’t matter. Yes, if I go out to dinner, there’s going to be a whole chaotic situation outside the restaurant. But I still want to go to dinner with my friends. … Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
“I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life,” she said of that period she calls “a career death.” It ultimately inspired Swift to release her sixth studio album, “Reputation,” which she is set to rerecord.
“It’s a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure,” she said of what the album represents.
Rerecording her music and battling Scooter Braun
Taylor Swift believes Scooter Braun had “nefarious reasons” to buy her music catalog. (Getty Images)
“Reputation” is just one of two albums Swift has yet to rerecord and release.
In 2019, Swift’s entire music catalog with Big Machine Records was sold to someone she says “hates” her — Scooter Braun.
“With the Scooter thing, my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted them for nefarious reasons, in my opinion,” Swift said. “I was so knocked on my a– by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold. I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now. This is it. I don’t know what to do.’”
Scooter Braun, a former Kanye West collaborator, used to manage several celebrities, including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. (Michael Buckner/Penske Media via Getty Imagesv)
She says a fellow pop star helped inspire her to begin rerecording her music.
“I’d run into Kelly Clarkson, and she would go, ‘Just redo it.’ … My dad kept saying it to me too. I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ Nobody wants to redo their homework if, on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.
“I respond to extreme pain with defiance,” she said. So she decided to do it.
“If you look at what I’ve put out since then, it’s more albums in the last few years than I did in the first 15 years of my career,” she noted.
“I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before. There is one thing I’ve learned. My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art. … But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote-unquote defeat your enemies. Trash takes itself out every single time.”
Taylor Swift set records with her Eras Tour, which she has now taken internationally. (Jeff Kravitz/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
Eras Tour prep
Swift is in the middle of her record-breaking, international Eras Tour, something Swift says was “harder than anything” she’s done before.
Swift said she used to approach tours “like a frat guy” but recognized the gravity of this show, which would incorporate songs from every era of her career. She started training six months before her first show in Arizona.
“Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” she revealed. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.”
She also incorporated a strength and conditioning program.
“Then I had three months of dance training because I wanted to get it in my bones,” she admitted. “I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans and not lose my train of thought.”
Taylor Swift performs more than 40 songs on her Eras Tour and puts on a concert that spans more than three hours. (Emma McIntyre/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
She also stopped drinking.
“Doing that show with a hangover … I don’t want to know that world.”
On her off days, Swift said, “I do not leave my bed except to get food and take it back to my bed and eat it there.
“It’s a dream scenario. I can barely speak because I’ve been singing for three shows straight. Every time I take a step, my feet go crunch, crunch, crunch from dancing in heels. … I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable or stressed. That’s part of my identity as a human being now. If someone buys a ticket to my show, I’m going to play it unless we have some sort of force majeure.”
Kenny Chesney’s impact
Taylor Swift was supposed to tour with Kenny Chesney when she was 17. (Rick Diamond/WireImage/Getty Images)
Before Swift was a superstar headlining her own stadium tours, she was a young girl set to open for country crooner Kenny Chesney.
“This was going to change my career,” she said of his tour, which happened nearly half her lifetime ago. “I was so excited.”
But Swift was unable to accompany Chesney because the tour was sponsored by a beer company and she was not yet 21.
“I was devastated,” Swift recalled.
Taylor Swift says Kenny Chesney gave her a gift that impacted her career. (Inez and Vinoodh for Time)
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Months later, at her 18th birthday party, Swift said she ran into Chesney’s promoter, who came bearing the ultimate gift. It was a card from Chensey that said, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t come on the tour, so I wanted to make it up to you,” along with a check.
“It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life,” Swift remembered. “I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.”
Of the gesture, Chesney said, “She was a writer who had something to say. … That isn’t something you can fake by writing clichés. You can only live it, then write it as real as possible.”
