As the pop star sensationally kills off her former selves, journalist Lucy Vine and others who've met her explore how Taylor Swift went from innocent ingénue to self-styled 'queen of snakes'
Taylor Swift was not Taylor Swift when I first met her. Back in 2008, she was a gangly teenager with tight curls, who stooped in that self-conscious way very tall young people tend to do. She seemed incredibly smart, but innocent; going everywhere with her mum, Andrea, who was always watching benignly during the four times I interviewed her daughter. Wide-eyed and unguarded, Taylor talked with speed about how much she wanted this career and this life. She told me now happy she was in this world, and how thrilled she was with her expanding circle of celeb friends – including, back then, Katy Perry, who Taylor said ‘always sends me the most hilarious text messages!’
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That Taylor Swift is dead. In truth, she’s been dead for a long time, but she was of cially declared so last week by a new scorched-earth Taylor in her 'Look What You Made Me Do' music video. After six months of uncharacteristic silence, followed by
a wholesale deletion of her social media presence, Taylor came back with a brutal bang. With the help of a $10 million bathtub full of jewels, 'LWYMMD' immediately broke four different YouTube and streaming records, and with it, any chance at building bridges with her many, many enemies. Every frame had a purpose, and that purpose was revenge on anyone who has crossed her, including Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Calvin Harris, Tom Hiddleston and, of course, she-of-the- formerly-hilarious-texts. Taylor even turns on herself, literally piling up her previous incarnations – including the 2008 one I’d first met – before knocking them down, kicking them in the face, and declaringin a horror- film-sing-song voice that ‘The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead!’
A few years after my encounters with the country-musician-turned-pop-star, Guardian journalist Alex MacPherson met a very different Taylor. This 2012 Taylor was edgier, with red lipstick to match her new album Red. She’d had her heart broken and maybe that innocence was starting to fade, as she told him in the interview, ‘That one thing I’m really afraid of is that magic doesn’t last. That butterflies and daydreams and love, all these things that I hold so dear, are going to leave some day.’ But Alex tells me now he didn’t truly buy into the syrupy vibe. ‘I never thought of her as an innocent princess, even in those days, and she didn’t come across like it. Sure, she spoke about wanting to believe in it, but she was also too down-to-earth and aware it was a myth to really fall for it. She was as professionally poised as you’d expect, even then. The one moment she lost it a tiny bit emotionally, was when she talked about the mean girls at her school – like, I think they still made her seethe.’
In the same year, entertainment journalist Jacqui Meddings met Taylor. ‘We got into the back of a huge, fancy car and sat, slightly awkwardly, side-by-side for almost an hour as her chauffeur took us from a gig to her private jet,’ says Jacqui. ‘She was in full-blown Red era. Short skirt, perfect hair, red lips. She was sweet, smart, razor-sharp, funny, yet innocent enough to twitch a little when I swore. She was tough, too. I’ve never had an interviewee more in control. She made it clear exactly what was a no-go area – mainly naming exes.’
Things were more complicated when Jacqui met her again in 2015 after the launch of 1989. By then, another New Taylor had been born; peak control-freak Taylor. She was embroiled in her first proper feud – hello again, Katy Perry – and her interviews were marked with a certain level of paranoia. Jacqui describes how setting up a cover shoot took ‘almost a year of negotiating with her publicist. Hundreds of emails had been exchanged around every detail, from the wardrobe she would wear to her coffee order.’ When they finally came face-to-face, Jacqui says Taylor ‘brimmed with a new confidence, independence and sexiness. I met her again in London not long after and the security had seriously amped up. Locations were kept secret until as late as possible and a guard was never far away from her.’
Louise Gannon is one of very few journalists who has interviewed Taylor across all these different eras and tells me she thinks her transformation is deliberate. ‘These are all characters Taylor creates,’ Louise says. ‘She’s always been someone who pulls her own strings and doesn’t care about ruffling feathers. She is her own machine, and she knew she had to toughen up. I’ve watched it happen over the last nine years of interviewing her, seen her develop this shield – this armour – to protect herself. And I think it’s so clever. Taylor once told me that everything she does, everything she puts out on social media, comes back to the song. This is just the next stage to her plan. She used to think being relatable and likeable was the key. She played the victim, like “Poor me, I got bullied at school, I can’t get a man, I’m getting picked on by other celebs,” and now she’s changed her own narrative. She’s come out kicking – literally.’
The Taylor of today might not look anything like my 2008 Taylor, but, actually, I think I like this one better. She’s done playing the victim, she’s taking no prisoners. If you come for her, she will come for you – armed with a record- breaking diss song. Her single might be called 'Look What You Made Me Do', but Taylor’s very much the one in charge.
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