It’s Taylor Swift‘s first September Vogue!
The supposed fashion bible released their cover on Thursday, unveiling the You Need to Calm Down songstress as the star of their front page! Along with it, an interview also dropped, where Swift spoke her mind on “humiliating” cancel culture, her drama with Scooter Braun buying her entire music catalog, the end of her feud with Katy Perry, and way more!
Related: Here’s A List Of All The Rumored Spoilers For Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’!
Recalling her Reputation era and Kim Kardashian West leaking audio of her phone call with Kanye West, which the 29-year-old maintains she only knew about some of the lyrics from Famous, but never knew about the words “that bitch,” Taylor opened up about being “canceled” by millions online:
“A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience. I don’t think there are that many people who can actually understand what it’s like to have millions of people hate you very loudly. When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being. You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, Kill yourself.”
The Grammy-winner continued about the dark time, explaining she needed to regain control of her life:
“I realized I needed to restructure my life because it felt completely out of control. I knew immediately I needed to make music about it because I knew it was the only way I could survive it. It was the only way I could preserve my mental health and also tell the story of what it’s like to go through something so humiliating.”
So when it came to her Reputation album and Look What You Made Me Do, it only made sense for Swift to embrace being a “snake”:
“Yeah, this is the character you created for me, let me just hide behind it. I always used this metaphor when I was younger. I’d say that with every reinvention, I never wanted to tear down my house. ’Cause I built this house. This house being, metaphorically, my body of work, my songwriting, my music, my catalog, my library. I just wanted to redecorate. I think a lot of people, with Reputation, would have perceived that I had torn down the house. Actually, I just built a bunker around it.”
Tay later explained it wasn’t possible for her to rehash what it was like to be canceled publicly and so fervently at the time:
“When you’re going through loss or embarrassment or shame, it’s a grieving process with so many micro emotions in a day. One of the reasons why I didn’t do interviews for Reputation was that I couldn’t figure out how I felt hour to hour. Sometimes I felt like: All these things taught me something that I never could have learned in a way that didn’t hurt as much. Five minutes later, I’d feel like: That was horrible. Why did that have to happen? What am I supposed to take from this other than mass amounts of humiliation? And then five minutes later I’d think: I think I might be happier than I’ve ever been.”
But it was also a way for Tay to shed her skin, that is, if she’s seeing the positive in it:
“It’s so strange trying to be self-aware when you’ve been cast as this always smiling, always happy ‘America’s sweetheart’ thing, and then having that taken away and realizing that it’s actually a great thing that it was taken away, because that’s extremely limiting. We’re not going to go straight to gratitude with it. Ever. But we’re going to find positive aspects to it. We’re never going to write a thank-you note.”
Sorry, Kim K.
Some other people she won’t be penning a thank you note to?? Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine Label Group, and Scooter.
While the seasoned performer didn’t say much about the controversial purchase, when asked if she ever tried to get her masters back, she confessed:
“It was either investing in my past or my and other artists’ future, and I chose the future.”
In her lengthy interview with Vogue, Taylor was also able to express her thoughts on David Mueller, the DJ she accused of groping her ass during a 2013 photo session. Revealing he has since paid her the dollar owed from her countersuit with a Sacagawea coin, she shared:
“He was trolling me, implying that I was self-righteous and hell-bent on angry, vengeful feminism. That’s what I’m inferring from him giving me a Sacagawea coin. Hey, maybe he was trying to do it in honor of a powerful Native American woman. I didn’t ask.”
The coin is in the hands of her lawyer now.
It’s not just her feminism that has garnered backlash, but her calling out the double standards which have followed her for years.
To start, she addressed whether or not she had always been aware of sexism:
“I think about this a lot. When I was a teenager, I would hear people talk about sexism in the music industry, and I’d be like, I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Then I realized that was because I was a kid. Men in the industry saw me as a kid. I was a lanky, scrawny, overexcited young girl who reminded them more of their little niece or their daughter than a successful woman in business or a colleague. The second I became a woman, in people’s perception, was when I started seeing it.”
The cover star continued:
“It’s fine to infantilize a girl’s success and say, How cute that she’s having some hit songs. How cute that she’s writing songs. But the second it becomes formidable? As soon as I started playing stadiums—when I started to look like a woman—that wasn’t as cool anymore. It was when I started to have songs from Red come out and cross over, like I Knew You Were Trouble and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”
There’s more to it:
“I wanted to say to people, You realize writing songs is an art and a craft and not, like, an easy thing to do? Or to do well? People would act like it was a weapon I was using. Like a cheap dirty trick. Be careful, bro, she’ll write a song about you. Don’t stand near her. First of all, that’s not how it works. Second of all, find me a time when they say that about a male artist: Be careful, girl, he’ll use his experience with you to get—God forbid—inspiration to make art.”
You’ll hear some different inspiration with Lover, as she tackles homophobia, politics, and more on the upcoming album:
“Maybe a year or two ago, Todrick [Hall] and I are in the car, and he asked me, ‘What would you do if your son was gay?’ The fact that he had to ask me… shocked me and made me realize that I had not made my position clear enough or loud enough. If my son was gay, he’d be gay. I don’t understand the question.”
She continued:
“If he was thinking that, I can’t imagine what my fans in the LGBTQ community might be thinking. It was kind of devastating to realize that I hadn’t been publicly clear about that… Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male. I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of. It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It’s clickbait, and it’s a part of my life story, and it’s a part of my career arc.”
We all saw that when Kardashian and West supporters urged the public to “cancel” her.
Also being criticized for not being public about her politics, she finally took her stance on Instagram with a post many will remember as she endorsed Democrats on the Tennessee midterms ballot.
It was also around this time her former enemy Perry sent her a literal olive branch, which is when T.Swift asked her to be in the YNTCD music video:
“She wrote back, ‘This makes me so emotional. I’m so up for this. I want us to be that example. But let’s spend some time together. Because I want it to be real.’ So she came over and we talked for hours.”
Swift went on to explain of them hugging it out:
“We decided the metaphor for what happens in the media is they pick two people and it’s like they’re pouring gasoline all over the floor. All that needs to happen is one false move, one false word, one misunderstanding, and a match is lit and dropped. That’s what happened with us. It was: Who’s better? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? Katy or Taylor? The tension is so high that it becomes impossible for you to not think that the other person has something against you.”
Truly like a lit match to gasoline!
Ch-ch-check out the Lover starlet’s covers (below), but also be sure to read her full interview with Vogue HERE!
[Image via Judy Eddy/WENN]
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