Taylor Swift’s ‘Rolling Stone’ Interview: 10 Revelations About Kanye West, Katy Perry, Scooter Braun, ‘Lover’ and More

Credit: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

Taylor Swift’s ‘Rolling Stone’ Interview: 10 Revelations About Kanye West, Katy Perry, Scooter Braun, ‘Lover’ and More

Taylor Swift will no longer allow herself to be silenced — but that doesn’t mean she’s always had the confidence to defend herself in the public eye. The “Me!” songstress didn’t hold back while discussing her famous feud with Kanye West, her rekindled friendship with Katy Perry and how she’s evolved over the years in her October Rolling Stone cover story. Swift, 29, detailed what people didn’t get about her anger toward West, 42, after he released his 2015 song “Famous,” in which he refers to her as a "bitch," and how she was looking for approval from him following his 2009 MTV VMA’s interruption. “The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when [Kanye] called me a bitch,” the pop star explained. “That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn’t just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things. I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me — because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me. 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.” However, not all of Swift’s interview with Rolling Stone focused on feuds. The artist also opened up about her most recent album, Lover, which was released in August. “I don’t think I’ve ever leaned into the old version of myself more creatively than I have on this album, where it’s very, very autobiographical,” Swift gushed. “But also moments of extreme catchiness and moments of extreme personal confession.” Scroll down to read 10 revelations from Swift’s Rolling Stone’s cover story.

Credit: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

On Maintaining Her Success

“The times when I felt like I was going insane was when I was trying to maintain my career in the same way that I ascended,” Swift shared. “It’s easier to get power than to keep it. It’s easier to get acclaim than to keep it. It’s easier to get attention than to keep it.”

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On Being on “Bad Terms” With Kanye West

“The 2015 VMAs come around. He’s getting the Vanguard Award. He called me up beforehand — I didn’t illegally record it, so I can’t play it for you — but he called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hour-long conversation, and he’s like, ‘I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me,’ and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest,” she said. “And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, ‘MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!’ … and I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife [Kim Kardashian], and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk s--t. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, ‘You know what? I really don’t want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I’m just going to move past this.’ So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song. [The line being ‘... me and Taylor might still have sex’.] And I was like, ‘OK, good. We’re back on good terms.’ And then when I heard the song, I was like, ‘I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.’"

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On Scooter Braun — and the Claims She Declined to Participate in the March For Our Lives Demonstration and Manchester Benefit Concert

“Unbelievable. Here’s the thing: Everyone in my team knew if Scooter Braun brings us something, do not bring it to me. The fact that [Big Machine Label Group CEO Scott Borchetta and Braun] are in business together after the things he said about Scooter Braun — it’s really hard to shock me — and this was utterly shocking,” Swift shared. “These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves. Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it.”

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On Rekindling Her Friendship With Katy Perry

The Valentine’s Day actress and the American Idol judge butted heads in 2014 after Swift accused Perry of poaching her backup dancers. Things got better in May 2018 after the “Swish Swish” singer sent Swift an olive branch. “We were talking about how we’ve had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She’s like, ‘I’m a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.’ So it’s completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, [M]LC M***isconception,” Swift said of reconnecting with Perry. “And oftentimes I’ve had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. … And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t know that was how you felt.’ Because it takes me a second ... And that is how I handle any discomfort, any pain. I stand there, I freeze. And then five minutes later, I know how I feel. But in the moment, I’m probably overreacting and I should be nice. Then I process it, and in five minutes, if it’s gone, it’s past, and I’m like, ‘I was overreacting, everything’s fine. I can get through this. I’m glad I didn’t say anything harsh in the moment.’ But when it’s actually something bad that happened, and I feel really, really hurt or upset about it, I only know after the fact. Because I’ve tried so hard to squash it: ‘This probably isn’t what you think.’ That’s something I had to work on.”

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On Being More Candid in Her Lyrics vs. Interviews

“Singing about something helps you to express it in a way that feels more accurate,” Swift said. “You cannot, no matter what, put words in a quote and have it move someone the same way as if you heard those words with the perfect sonic representation of that feeling … There is that weird conflict in being a confessional songwriter and then also having my life, you know, 10 years ago, be catapulted into this strange pop-culture thing.”

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On Dealing With Constant Criticism — and Self Examination

“Criticism that’s constructive is helpful to my character growth. Baseless criticism is stuff I’ve got to toss out now,” she explained. “I thought about how words are my only way of making sense of the world and expressing myself — and now any words I say or write are being twisted against me. People love a hate frenzy. It’s like piranhas. People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t really need very many reasons to do it. I felt like the situation was pretty hopeless. I wrote a lot of really aggressively bitter poems constantly. I wrote a lot of think pieces that I knew I’d never publish, about what it’s like to feel like you’re in a shame spiral. And I couldn’t figure out how to learn from it. Because I wasn’t sure exactly what I did that was so wrong. That was really hard for me, because I cannot stand it when people can’t take criticism. So I try to self-examine, and even though that’s really hard and hurts a lot sometimes, I really try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me. 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.”

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On the Stages of Her Career

Swift reflected: “I’ve had several upheavals in my career. When I was 18, they were like, ‘She doesn’t really write those songs.’ So my third album I wrote by myself as a reaction to that. Then they decided I was a serial dater — a boy-crazy man-eater — when I was 22. And so I didn’t date anyone for, like, two years. And then they decided in 2016 that absolutely everything about me was wrong. If I did something good, it was for the wrong reasons. If I did something brave, I didn’t do it correctly. If I stood up for myself, I was throwing a tantrum. And so I found myself in this endless mockery echo chamber.”

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On Finding Inspiration From Love Joe Alwyn

Swift, whose music has heavily been influenced by heartbreak, told the magazine: “I think I might feel like that possibly when I have a family. If I have a family. [Pauses] I don’t know why I said that! But that’s what I’ve heard from other artists, that they were very protective of their personal life, so they had to draw inspiration from other things. But again, I don’t know why I said that. Because I don’t know how my life is going to go or what I’m going to do. But right now, I feel like it’s easier for me to write than it ever was.”

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On Why Fall Out Boy Is Her Biggest Lyrical Inspiration

“I love Fall Out Boy so much. Their songwriting really influenced me, lyrically, maybe more than anyone else,” she said. “They take a phrase and they twist it. ‘Loaded God complex/Cock it and pull it’? When I heard that, I was like, ‘I’m dreaming.’”

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... And Her Thoughts on the 'Game of Thrones' Finale

Just like Us, Swift is a hardcore fan of the hit series — and had an opinion on the last episode in the series. “Oh, my God. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this,” she quipped. “So, clinically our brain responds to our favorite show ending the same way we feel when a breakup occurs. I read that. There’s no good way for it to end. No matter what would have happened in that finale, people still would have been really upset because of the fact that it’s over.”