Original subtitles

I think that the lesson is that you shouldn't care so much

if you feel misunderstood by a lot of people who don't know you, as long as

feel understood by the people who do know you, the people who will show up

you, the people who see you as a human being.

From the beginning, she became part of my life. Her voice just makes you feel

like you're not alone.

She was my rock before she was Taylor Swift.

I don't want to become anyone who I'm not. You know, I want to be the same

person at the end of this that I was when I began.

I just fell in love with how she celebrated girlhood. It was permission

yearn. Yep, exactly.

Permission to yearn.

She allows women to connect back to that 16 -year -old self. That

time in your life when every single glance is, like, apocalyptic.

She's created a community on a scale that's probably never been done before.

The biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift, good morning.

That's a bold introduction.

I liked it.

She wasn't the little girl from Nashville anymore. Every time she

album, she's selling millions.

How are you going to spend Valentine's Day?

You going to see Jake?

And then she suddenly becomes the serial dater running through men like paper.

And what started off as just innocent, hey, I write songs about boys, it almost

became weaponized.

She's blonde, she's wealthy, she's white. All these kind of start stacking

against her. No matter where you turn, there was Taylor.

Enough of this Taylor Swift person.

Kanye, is Taylor Swift a bitch?

All of a sudden she's this liar who's peaceful and trying to manipulate

She's being called a snake.

Hashtag Taylor Swift is cancelled.

This was really just a life and death moment.

I absolutely loved the fourth with which Taylor came back.

Whenever adversity comes her way, she comes back like the Avengers.

It's like, not only does she win, she wins big.

Oh, like, she just writes songs about her ex -boyfriends, and I think,

that's a very sexist angle to take.

You just can't win a media war against Taylor Swift.

You know, it's a fool's errand.

I think it's undeniable.

She's the most powerful musical artist in the world.

When you look at this performance on the heiress tour, I hate to throw around a

word like worship casually, but she certainly commands that level of

from fans that you do associate with large religious movement.

She has a sense that there's a story that she's telling. The story was always

about fans, and it's always about her deep connection with them.

She started in country music, which really prides itself on authenticity.

And so that really kind of cemented this, you know, connection of bringing,

know, fans together with Taylor.

I mean, country is a really notoriously white genre of music with conservative,

the small c values.

So Taylor coming up through country really cemented her into this lane of

America's perfect, blonde, all -American sweetheart.

The American people, when we pledge our allegiance to the flag, feel renewed

respect and love for all it represents.

Ever since the disaster, a wave of patriotism has been spreading across

Blue collar fans and family proudly showing their colors.

and embracing the music that gives voice to the lives they live.

I started dragging my parents to festivals and fairs and karaoke contests

was like 10, and came to Nashville for the first time when I was 11. And I had

this demo CD of me singing karaoke music, and walked into every major

label and was like, Hey, I'm Taylor, I'm 11, I want a record deal.

You know, call me.

So, you know, what I can see here is that as she's talking about how she

to get her career off the ground. You know, she's very charming. You know,

a little bit self -deprecating in the fact that she realized, okay, that

going to work. But at the same time, she's extremely confident.

What, you know, pre -teenager has the gumption to go into a big record label

Nashville and say, I'm talented enough, give me a record deal. You know, who

does that?

You can see here she is the kind of person who takes what she does,

even as a small kid, very, very seriously.

Dear Diary, Sorry about the long wait.

Boy, do I have a lot to tell you.

New York, the best.

I met a guitar slash country singer named Taylor Swift.

She was nice.

And I think we can be friends.

I was 12.

My family and I went to Point Pleasant Beach, which is the New Jersey shore.

They had this boardwalk called Jenkinson's.

And I heard country music playing.

And found Taylor on this little makeshift stage with about 20 people

playing these songs I'd never heard.

This is a song I wrote yesterday, and it's about a girl who's just different.

And I really like it because it's just so happy. So this is called Lucky You.

This video shows exactly how she performed that day on the boardwalk.

She was so talented and beautiful.

I was just in awe of her stage presence.

She was confident and she was just having fun.

Here,

Taylor is singing about a young girl who was born very different than everybody

else and she doesn't care.

She's okay with that Taylor thing about things that I cared about and that I

related to.

So I was absolutely mesmerized from the get -go.

She was my age, which was wild to me. She was up there in front of everybody.

could never imagine doing something like that.

When Taylor was done playing, her brother Austin was there with her

demo CDs.

And so, yeah, I went over, talked to her for a very little bit.

And had her sign a little demo CD for me.

I stuck it in my Walkman and put on my little headphones, tuned out the world,

and just listened to these two songs on repeat for years.

That CD was my constant. That CD was my, it's not sounding incredibly weird, but

my friend.

This photograph.

is of me and Taylor. It's the picture that was taken, my mom took it, of our

first encounter.

You know, it's just a picture to a lot of people. But it was a core memory for

me because of what happened right after.

It's ridiculous.

I'm going to have to take this from you.

That's really interesting to see because the relationship that her and I had was

more like two girlfriends.

I mean, we just cracked up all the time.

The very first time that I met Taylor, when I said, Taylor, I said, what's your

goal? She says, I want a gold record.

And what that means is that you need to sell 500 ,000.

copies of a record and i'm like great let's go meet 500 000 people

no one

told us it was country night y 'all want to hear some country music mommy's in

that video yeah is that you right there

You can see that Taylor was incredibly driven and incredibly determined and

incredibly young.

In 2007, we did 300 -ish shows.

We lived on up to a bus that had been previously owned by a share, so it was

like decked out in leopard print.

I slept on the bottom bunk and she was on the top bunk. Sort of was like having

a little sister that was also your boss.

She was somebody who always knew what she wanted.

I would see her being interviewed constantly, speak to radio stations,

autographs. Your eyes are so gorgeous.

They're so amazing. My mom took me for my birthday when I didn't have any

friends. No way. Yeah.

You can see she was very excited. She would sign autographs to anyone as long

they were willing to stand and wait for her. So sometimes that lasted hours and

hours.

She wanted people to feel better when she left than before she arrived.

You can't teach that in business school. You can't teach that anywhere. You

either have it or you don't have it.

The first Taylor Swift song I heard was Pure Drops on My Guitar.

My dad and I have always bonded through music. We were at my parents' house in

New Jersey and we just finished dinner and he put it on the speaker.

My dad picked me up in his arms and...

He told me to lay my head on his shoulder, and we were slow dancing

living room to Teardrops on My Guitar, and he told me, he whispered in my ear,

will never forget this, he whispered in my ear, one day you're going to dance

with someone that you love just like this.

Teardrops on My Guitar is just such a wonderful, beautiful, slow, sad song to

just kind of weep to.

She's comparing herself to the girl that her crush is in love with.

She's wondering, you know, why not me?

She sees herself as, you know, the odd one out, as the weird girl, as the not

popular girl.

But she's saying, when you're a young woman, it is so easy to compare yourself

to others and think, oh, if this little thing changed, then this person will

like me.

watching it, and I love all the things that go into it.

You know, I got a call from my editor, and he said, there's, you know, this new

artist, Taylor Swift. I think you need to go interview her.

I was running a recorder because I was with her for many hours, just following

her around.

One thing I have to say about the tapes is that you hear somebody who is pretty

honest.

I only write about things I'm going through.

It's got to be personal for me.

You know, I've definitely written songs, you know, when you're crying on the

bathroom floor.

Because we've always got a bunch of things going on. We've always got a

hint that I miss him or I love him or I wish I had him or I

wish I told him this.

You're going through something and the only way that you know how to verbalize

it is through music.

Yeah, I like someone I can't tell them. I write it all in a song.

In 2008, the financial crash happens, right? And the world is kind of plunged

into this global recession.

Music sales drop, particularly CDs, but Taylor does this quite incredible feat

of bucking that trend and actually selling albums.

This is my album that came out in October, and I wrote every song on the

so I'm pretty excited about it.

And let me just, if we're doing show and tell, this, my friends, is my gold

record. I can see this video and know she's received something she's really

proud of. All of her hard work is starting to pay off.

She taps into this market that is not really being served by the music

at this moment in time.

Young women and girls who are looking for someone who can essentially be a

for their feelings, right? Someone who they can relate to, can sing songs that

they feel have been written to them about their lives.

I just fell in love with how she celebrated girlhood and how she gave me

permission to feel all my big feelings. It was permission to yearn.

Yeah, exactly.

Permission to yearn.

There really wasn't a mold for it. You know, she wasn't sexy. She wasn't doing

this like girl -woman thing like a Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera.

That was...

a very important message for that time because it showed that women didn't need

to be sexualized to be famous.

2009 was a big year for Taylor. She was having such a wonderful time.

I was really looking forward to the VMAs. Made some popcorn and sat down on

couch and turned on the VMAs and was watching it and it was going great and

then... Taylor Swift.

I got this amazing high when Taylor won her award and was like, oh my God, I was

so excited for her. And she looked so happy.

And then all of a sudden somebody runs up on stage and my stomach dropped.

I'm really happy for you. I'm going to let you finish.

But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

As he was talking, you just saw her face fall.

She looked so vulnerable.

The way she was sort of like playing with the award, it's heartbreaking.

I can't imagine thinking all of those people are booing you.

I'm really happy for you. I'll let you finish.

But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

At that moment, I am so...

Proud of her because she stayed quiet.

That was a conversation that Taylor and I had years before that.

Humility and grace.

I said, somebody give Kanye a hug. We cannot buy that kind of publicity.

Now they're all going to Yahoo and Google. Who's this Taylor Swift? Who's

Taylor Swift?

Boom.

Kanye West was huge.

You know, at the time, he was one of the most prolific and celebrated rappers

and producers in history.

Taylor Swift grew up listening to songs off his first album.

When that happened, the day after, Kanye West immediately went on television to

apologize. You can see he regrets it. He wishes he didn't do it.

I immediately knew in the situation that it was wrong and it wasn't a spectacle

or just, you know, it's...

actually someone's emotions, you know, that I stepped on. And it was very, it

was just, it was rude, period. And, you know, I'd like to be able to apologize

to her in person.

It really kind of sets Taylor up to be this kind of woman who's always in the

victim position. And she takes to music to kind of right some of these wrongs.

Being here is incredible.

I'm excited and I'm nervous. And, you know, whenever I'm feeling strong

about something like this, I usually write a song about it.

She's a storyteller.

She is the primary character in most of the stories that she tells, whether

she's telling them in the songs or here, in how she's presenting herself to the

public. And when somebody hijacks your story, it's hard to know where to go

that. You might be expecting me to say something bad about Kanye and

how he ran up on the stage and ruined my VMA monologue.

But there's nothing more to say.

Because everything's okay, I've got security lining the stairs.

But see, this is one of the things, I think it's just she appreciates the

she appreciates the story.

She's back in control of the narrative.

She has an incredible amount of wealth and privilege, but she is still able to

write that underdogs.

narrative really, really well because I think she has felt it and has

experienced that in the past.

She's very

poised, especially from a

very young age.

People didn't know what to make of her.

She was in high school, still taking regular classes, and then jutting off to

sing the national anthem.

She's a straight -A student.

She's the goody -goody. She's the perfect girl. In her school, kids are

ooh, you're weird. Like, why are you even doing that? You have frizzy hair.

I think

whatever she experienced

she felt very deeply.

Taylor takes life very seriously.

She has always written about the things that she has felt most deeply.

And so those are the kinds of things that came out in her first songs.

I just want to learn the simple. Do I have to do that?

She's like, do I have to do that? Like to play this song? Am I going to have to

play that crazy chord you're playing?

Taylor and I started writing in 2003.

She showed me a song that she wrote called The Outside, just feeling like

was, you know, she wasn't part of the group, the gang.

And she also knew, I think, that she had something special to offer the world,

so that makes it a little tougher to fit in.

But I remember when she was singing the song and she was in the studio, this is

the lyric sheet, so she's got the lyric sheet on a music stand. With a pencil,

she put the world over here.

And she's over here and the world is here. That's how outside she felt.

So how can I ever try to be better?

Nobody lets me in. I can still see you. This ain't the best view on the outside

looking in.

A couple of months after I got back from New Jersey and I had met Taylor, I

encountered a situation that was...

Something that a child should never have to encounter.

And I was so grateful to have Taylor.

And her CD was something of armor for me. She was

somebody I would write to in my diary because I couldn't talk to anybody else.

Hi, Taylor.

I hid in my room and blasted Lucky You all weekend.

It's getting bad.

I put stacks of books in front of the doors and check if they moved.

I asked for luck, but no way, Jose.

I want to live somewhere happy, but I'm scared of everything.

I listened to Lucky You in the shower all the time, and that was not always a

safe place for me.

And so when I had her music playing, and I was singing her music, and I was

okay, and I felt safe.

Something about her voice just makes you feel like you're not alone. She saved

me.

Thank you so much.

No, I think I'm going to carry them as long as they let me have them.

This is the dream come true. It's like I've never been presumptuous about

dreams. And when you have crazy dreams, like I wonder what it would be like to

win a Grammy someday, I never actually could fathom that it might happen until

was walking up there and winning one.

By 2010, she's finally made it. You know, she's having hit records in the

realm. You know, she's winning awards after awards.

And finally, she is at the Grammy Awards to do a very high -profile performance

with Stevie Nicks, who is someone that she idolized.

And she can perform maybe as, like, up to her usual caliber.

You know, she was on a massive stage.

She's singing with someone she greatly admires.

I think she just had an off night. You know, people say that she's out of tune,

that she sounds flat, that she doesn't hold a candle to Stevie Nicks. And she

famously attracts the ire of a music critic called Bob Lefset, who is

for not holding his punches.

Taylor's performance was, quote, dreadful. Now everyone knows Taylor

sing. He asked, did Taylor Swift kill her career overnight?

I'll argue she did. In one fell swoop, Taylor Swift consigned herself to the

dustbin of teen phenoms.

Taylor's too young and dumb to understand the mistakes she made, he

suggesting that she should have used autotune.

You know, at heart, you know, she's a perfectionist and she wants people to

her. And to this point, she's received a lot of praise for her writing. To read

something like what Bob Lester said would be devastating.

I think after you're backed into a corner with all of this criticism, I

Taylor's reaction is not to cower, but to reach out and take up even more

Taylor Swift did not take Bob Loeffler's criticism

lying down.

Here, she is standing up for herself.

Like she did so many other times when she went through something hard, she

a song about it.

Someday I'll be living in a big old city and all you're

ever going to be is me.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, she's able to kind of set her score, have the last word as a

to kind of tell people what she really thinks and how she really feels.

Someday I'll be living in a big...

And all you're ever gonna be is mean. It was just a real anthem for just keep

doing your thing and be happy.

Don't be mean. Don't be like those people.

Here, it lets her control the narrative in a way that nobody can take away. You

don't... pick fights with somebody who's going to sell 10 million copies of the

song that they end up writing about you. This one really means a lot to me

because this is for a song called Mean that I wrote.

And there's really no feeling quite like writing a song about someone who's

really mean to you and someone who completely hates you and makes your life

miserable and then winning a Grammy for it.

There is a great deal of satisfaction on that face right there in that

screenshot. There have not been many conflicts that Taylor has not

been able to turn to her advantage.

You know, it might suck now. Someone's bullying you. Someone's being mean to

you. But someday I'll be living in a big old city

and all you're ever going to be is mean.

See, every girl that was bullied knows every word to mean.

100%. 100%.

Where Taylor does differ from, you know, other artists is that she also invites

people in to speculate about that personal life.

All of the songs on here are about boys and love.

Yes. Anyone in particular?

There are a couple people that they're about, actually.

Like maybe that guy?

There's one that's about that guy. Uh -huh.

That guy's not in my life anymore, unfortunately.

Yira, she knows that when she writes about unnamed exes and people that she's

dated, but she leaves.

clues for fans to figure out who they are. She is inviting a certain

journalistic impulse to kind of figure out who is it then. And when I look at

that person, I'm not even going to be able to remember the boy who broke up

me over the phone in 25 seconds when I was 18.

She's making it clear that she's going through exactly what her songs are

talking about and exactly what her fans are talking about.

And, you know, and I think also, though, she probably didn't realize at the time

that anything she was talking about was going to be, you know, magnified.

Hi, Taylor.

How are you going to spend Valentine's Day?

You going to see Jake?

She probably didn't realize that her dating various different men would

this much tabloid speculation.

But all of a sudden, you know, she's not talking about from jock in high school.

She's talking about a big movie star. She's talking about another pop star.

And I think that level of blowback she was not quite ready for.

All right, let's talk about your number one hit where we are never, ever, ever,

ever, ever going to get back together.

Is that who's that about?

Here's what I'll do. You don't have to say I'm going to show pictures.

I don't know what I'm... You're supposed to ring... But I don't want to. I don't

want to.

Just don't send me angry emails. I don't want to get them. I'll hold it for you.

What are you doing to me? This is me.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Okay. All right. All right.

This makes me feel so bad about myself. Every time I come up here, you put like

a different dude up there on the screen.

She's showing that she's trapped, but she feels like she has no right to

complain about it. They just decided one day at 19 that she was a slut. And so

every person you date from here on out is only adding to that thing we already

knew about you. Yeah.

There's these unachievable expectations that are placed upon young women and

girls where it's like, oh, have fun, but not like that.

Oh, be successful, but not like that.

You're getting these great songs out of breakups. Oh, come on.

Do you really want to be in a relationship?

No. I think maybe you don't want to release it for like 15 years. Get about

or five more albums out of heartbreak.

Then settle down. Does that not make sense?

That's a pretty good game plan for you, Taylor.

You can thank me later.

Yeah. I look at this, though, and it makes me so mad because she is clearly

uncomfortable. People don't want to talk about her music. After a certain point,

they want to talk about her personal life.

If I could talk to my 19 -year -old self, I'd just say, hey, you're going to

date just like a normal 20 -something should be allowed to, but you're going

be a national lightning rod for slut -shaming.

Here at this point, she's very much trying to say how unfair it is that she

getting treated this way.

You know, it's very indicative of the sexism that she's always faced in the

music industry.

I just wanted to show the leg, because as I was telling you ahead of time,

you're going to walk home with more than maybe just a trophy tonight. I think

lots of men.

There's a split second, which I find so interesting on Taylor's face, where she

is shocked that someone has told her this. Like, she's basically being

of being promiscuous on live television on a red carpet.

I'm not going to walk home with any men tonight.

I think Taylor thinks of her childhood as

incredibly idyllic.

What were the rules in your house? I mean, did you have curfew? Did you have

stuff like that?

I always had to keep my words to me.

I always had to do my homework.

I had to call my mom when I got anywhere and let her know where I was.

There really wasn't a rule against dating because I didn't date anyone

was about 15.

So did you have your first kiss when you were 15, or was it younger than that?

Oh, my God, that's a long time to wait.

One incredibly significant thing about Taylor Swift is that her parents were

well -to -do, and they did not, you know, quote -unquote, need her money.

was a family project to get Taylor to start up.

I think that was always the plan for her, to be as famous as she is now.

What I watched was all the tools being put in the box to get her there.

I don't mean to be, I really am not trying to be a prude here, but if I'm

mom of a 10 -year -old girl in the audience, if there were just a couple of

moves there, then I would be like, oh, you're right, you're right.

You can see her mom, you know, was her chaperone. Her mom was her confidant.

know, her mom has been her support system.

My mom and I.

I have always been really close, and she's always been the friend that was

always there.

You know, there were times when in middle school and junior high, I didn't

a lot of friends.

But my mom was always my friend. Watching that, Taylor is so much of her

mother's influence.

If there had been no Andrea, there would probably be no Taylor Swift.

She was functioning as a manager, as a personal assistant, but also as a mom. I

mean, she essentially gave up her life.

to help her daughter pursue her career.

There are so many people that deserve to be thanked for this, but I'm just going

to thank one.

And that's the person that used to love to go to lunch with her friends and cook

dinner for her family and sleep in her bed every night.

And she gave that all away and left it all behind to go on the road with her 16

-year -old daughter.

And then she was sleeping in rental cars and in airplanes with her mouth hanging

wide open.

Because she was so tired.

And so, Mom, thank you so much. I love you.

This is for you.

Those things that she said in that speech were so accurate.

You know, she gave up everything for her to have that opportunity.

I think you always think your parents need to sacrifice for you.

Realizing that they don't have to and they choose to is something different.

That's what I thought.

This is the moment where she moves to New York and kind of almost like

herself, kind of like every other young woman who moves to New York ever does.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud and happy to have a young lady who has now

become, believe it or not, the biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift.

Good morning.

That's a bold introduction. I liked it. Well, six of the top ten are yours.

Yeah, it's been good. During the 1989 era, I think she was very much over the

only being asked about who she was dating. So she was like...

Fuck that. I'm going to move to New York. I'm going to hang out with my

girlfriends. I'm going to live my life a little and not have it be about a boy.

With 1989, it's really clear what Taylor is doing. She is reinventing herself as

a new kind of musician, a more mature songwriter. It's a really difficult

transition for a lot of musicians to make, and she just does it.

so well. And the songs are, you know, enormously catchy.

You know, you would be hard pressed to find a music critic who doesn't agree

that that album is a kind of pop masterpiece.

I think why Shake It Off works is because it is such a classic pop song.

know, there's a kind of call and response bit where she talks to the

the audience talks back. And I think that's what really resonated with a lot

people.

I mean,

right off the bat, I mean, I think you'd have to be living under a rock to not

know that Blank Space is lyrical retaliation. I'll be the crazy cat lady.

In the first moment, it's just her with her cat, just like... This

is ushering in a new era of,

I know I have a reputation.

Those are the only two options.

We're going to be together forever, or it's going to go down in flames.

There's no just normal relationship.

I really think she's, like, talking to the media there. Like, you love the game

I play.

Like, I sell your news. I sell your magazines. I sell, like, all those

on your site because of me.

To say, I've got a blank space, baby, and I'll write your name,

it's... A nod to every time she goes on a talk show and it's like, well, who is

it now? Who is it now? Who is it now? And to turn that into this little, well,

I've got a blank space.

In the mid 2010s, she's riding high off 1989.

And this feud that she's had with Kanye West is slowly kind of defrosting.

She's also talked about how.

She wanted to be liked. You know, this whole kind of good girl, people

side to her kind of came out, especially given that she'd grown up listening to

Kanye's music. It felt important to her to gain and win back his respect.

She even presents the MTV Vanguard Award to him at the VMAs, and that is widely

perceived to be a sign that they have just squashed the beef.

So I guess I have to say to all the other winners tonight, I'm really happy

you, and I'm going to let you finish.

But Kanye West has had one of the greatest careers of all time.

I mean, it's a really sweet video. And I think it really says something about

Taylor's approach to relationships.

And really terrible slash fascinating from a hindsight perspective.

I am honored to present the 2015 Vanguard Award to my friend, Kanye West.

And she's also using humor to defeat the situation, right?

It's like, why poke the bear again? You know, why bring it back up?

And then here's this video of Kanye and Taylor. It seemed like two friends

wanting to support each other's growth and willing to do anything for each

other. So my next single.

I wanted you to tweet it. So that's why I'm calling you, that I wanted you to

put the song out.

I guess it would just be people would be like, why is this happening?

The reason why it would be happening is because it has a very controversial line

at the beginning of the song about you.

Well, is it going to be mean?

No, I don't think it's mean.

Okay, then let me hear it. Okay.

It says, to all my South Side...

That know me best. I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.

That's not me.

Okay.

Our nation was founded on a bedrock principle. That we are all created

This morning, the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution

marriage equality.

The American dream is dead.

But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger

and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make

America great again.

Taylor can only talk about certain things in certain ways at certain points

her life. Then there's also the world around her changing.

People expected more from pop stars.

But, you know, she had a track record at that point of talking about her own

personal issues. You know, she was talking about her life.

For me, I feel like at 22, it's my right to vote, but it's not my right to tell

other people what to do. Right there. Right there, sister.

Come on. Come on. Come on.

So, you know, what I can see here is that she is so careful about what she

in public and is always very thoughtful and careful about what she says.

Politics was potentially part of her life, but it wasn't anything she

necessarily talked about.

People forget how young she was.

I think she was still trying to figure out what she stood for, what she wanted

to say.

She was just living her life and enjoying her success.

Kayla is basically riding high and she's got the girl squad, you know, this

group of women that she would surround herself with, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid.

People looked at the mainly white, very attractive, conventionally successful

women. What's up with that?

Because it's... Female friendship, it's about solidarity, it's about her, you

know, not just being defined by men, but by the women she hangs out with. I

think she thought that that was going to be above any kind of criticism or

judgment. She would have, you know, amazing over -the -top Fourth of July

parties, and they would all be Instagrammed, and, you know, she would

out with her friends.

I mean, she was enjoying being young, and she really, she faced a lot of

backlash for it.

People just thought, this all just seems a little bit manufactured.

Like, do you seriously want us to believe that on one night you're hanging

with Lorde, then you're going for dinner with Selena, then you're hanging out

for a sleepover with Lena Dunham?

And it just seems a little bit kind of unbelievable.

No matter where you turn, there was Taylor.

Enough of the Taylor Swift person.

People wanted more and more and more and more from her. And they were like,

whoa, you're too much.

You're too much.

She was everywhere.

And she deserved to be. And she worked so freaking hard to get where she was.

But the public didn't see that.

And they wanted to tear it down.

In 2016, Kanye West released a song called Famous, where he basically raps,

know, I made that bitch famous, referring to the VMAs stage invasion.

It's shot in a way that feels non -consensual.

And I think it's no surprise that Taylor has actually described it as a form of

revenge porn, even though that is just a wax figurine of her lying in bed.

Taylor...

is like, hey, you called me a bitch, and that lyric is really offensive, and

I'm really uncomfortable with you using my image to be naked in bed with you. I

didn't know that this was happening.

You didn't ask me if this was okay.

There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your

or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.

But if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack

someday when you get where you're going, you'll look around and you will know

that it was you and the people who love you who put you there. And that will be

the greatest feeling in the world.

Thank you for this moment.

Here is a moment where you find Taylor in a very avenging mood. You know, she's

angry.

Taylor hits back and says, I did not give permission to be referenced in this

song. I did not approve this lyric.

And unfortunately for Taylor, at this point in time, Kanye West is also

to Kim Kardashian, who also has a really ironclad understanding of how to work a

media narrative and how to come out looking like the underdog.

Kim proceeds to edit up a video of this phone call to make it sound like Taylor

gave her full -blown approval.

It's just, like, it's a really cool thing to do, and a really good show of

friendship. So thank you.

Oh, thank you, too.

And, you know, if people ask me about it, I think it would be great for me to

like, well, she called me and told me the line before it came out. Like,

on you guys. We're fine.

When Kim tweets this video, she adds a snake emoji, and the Internet

ran with that. She's being called a snake.

It was part of hashtags, the hashtag Taylor Swift is over party, hashtag

Swift is cancelled.

She could have saved a million babies and

solved world hunger and nobody would have cared. It wouldn't have mattered.

Is Taylor Swift a bitch?

People blew this out of proportion. I mean, she was getting death threats.

To have something at that magnitude just go completely off the rails,

and there was no stopping that train, no matter what she did.

I think it must have been really horrendous for Taylor to have to go

this because she starts a career as this homespun, folksy country gal from

Nashville, Tennessee.

Then all of a sudden she's this liar who's deceitful and trying to manipulate

people and has been caught red -handed.

And I think that was part of the glee with which people were taking her down

with because she vindicated all these things that people had been saying about

her and the press about her playing the victim.

So I think if you were a fan, you were probably...

Very confused and puzzled, like, which of these tailors is actually real? Which

is the real tailor?

I think she felt she couldn't do anything to stop it.

We didn't really know where it was going to go from there. We hadn't really seen

anybody come back from that.

Who knows what would come next? So she had to retreat and regroup and figure

because, you know, could this be the end of her career?

I reckon she might. Part two, on the way.

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