Revelations from Taylor Swift's Time interview, including Kim Kardashian, Ye feud
Taylor Swift is 2023's Time Person of the Year, giving the billionaire, business mogul, singer, songwriter, director, actor and producer another heavyweight accolade for her mantelpiece.
"In a divided world, where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light," wrote Time Editor in Chief Sam Jacobs. "No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well. Achieving this feat is something we often chalk up to the alignments of planets and fates, but giving too much credit to the stars ignores her skill and her power."
In the interview, Swift talks with Time writer Sam Lanksy from her New York City apartment about when she disappeared to an international rental in 2016 and hid for a year, her rerecorded albums taking off, her fitness training for her behemoth concert, her economic impact, her blockbuster movie and her relationship with Travis Kelce.
"I know I'm going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable or stressed," Swift said. "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."
Read on for more revelations from the interview.
Taylor Swift credits Kelly Clarkson for encouraging her to rerelease her albums
Swift rereleased two of her albums, claiming the ownership of eight of her 10 eras. At the end of 2022, she released the "Bejeweled" music video and embedded in it her plans for 2023. The singer rode an elevator and planned to stop at floors three (her third album "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)") and five (her fifth album “1989 (Taylor’s Version)") on her way to the top.
The only two albums she has left are "Reputation (Taylor's Version)" and her eponymous debut album. Swift said the Reputation tracks will be "fire."
"I'm collecting horcruxes," she told Time. "I'm collecting infinity stones. Gandalf's voice is in my head every time I put out a new one. For me, it is a movie now."
Swift credits Kelly Clarkson and her dad with pushing her to rerelease the albums. "I'd run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, 'Just redo it,'" Swift told Time. "My dad kept saying it to me too."
The singer also credited Kenny Chesney with boosting her career back at its beginning. She lost an opportunity to tour with him when she was 17 because his shows were sponsored by a beer company. To make it up to her, the country star cut her a check for her 18th birthday she used to pay for tour buses and bonuses for her band.
"I was able to fuel my dreams," Swift said about Chesney's generosity.
More: Taylor Swift's '1989 (Taylor's Version)' sets Spotify music streaming records for 2023
The singer also complimented Greta Gerwig, who directed the "Barbie" movie, and fellow superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
In November, Bloomberg named Swift a billionaire from her booming "Eras Tour" movie hitting theaters, album rerecordings and merchandise sales.
A hidden "Taylor Swift economy" catapulted sales for business owners across the nation. From soaps to a thematic cruise inspired by her eras, the insatiable thirst for Swift gear skyrocketed. The USA TODAY Network even hired a reporter dedicated to covering the Taylor Swift beat full-time.
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Taylor Swift sheds light on Travis Kelce relationship timeline
Professionally she killed it in 2023, and personally, she started dating a star football tight end Travis Kelce.
In Argentina, the Kansas City Chief attended her concert where she sang "End Game" in her surprise set and changed a "Karma" lyric to "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me."
The two started dating after Kelce discussed on his podcast his failed attempt at giving Swift a friendship bracelet and weeks before she appeared in the Kansas City Chiefs suite.
"This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell," she said. "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. 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."
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The love story has played out publicly, boosting ratings for the NFL, spiking Kelce jersey sales and propelling the athlete into a bigger universe of fandom. The football player had to move into a gated home for greater security.
"I'm just there to support Travis," she said about not knowing how often the league shows her on TV. "I have no awareness of if I'm being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads."
She said the pair are proud of each other and show up for each other regardless of if other people are there.
More: Taylor Swift makes fifth NFL appearance to support Travis Kelce
Heading into 2024, Swift will kick off the Eras Tour again in Tokyo, Japan and Australia. Her current pinnacle has been a long time coming, but it may also be just beginning.
"Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I'll never get that time back," Swift said.
Taylor Swift on 'getting canceled' over Kim Kardashian, Kanye West backlash
Swift also opened up about the lowest points in her career and how that helped her appreciate the highs.
"It's not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this happening were two horrendous things that happened to me," Swift said. "The first was getting canceled within an inch of my life and sanity. The second was having my life's work taken away from me by someone who hates me."
One of those "catalysts" Swift refers to is the very public feud with former couple Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian. This, in part, led to her "Reputation" era.
In 2016, Ye released the song "Famous" which featured a lyric about him being the reason behind Swift's fame. Swift denied that she approved of the lyric at the time, and his then-wife, Kardashian, released an edited, recorded phone call between them on social media that led the public to believe the opposite.
"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," she said. "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."
Revisit the feud: Kim Kardashian rips Taylor Swift as feud with Kanye West resurfaces; Swift's rep fires back
Taylor Swift breaks down Eras Tour fitness and health routine
The main character of pop culture had a groundbreaking year with the kickoff of her Eras Tour that brought her 3.5-hour show to 66 shows in 23 cities across North America, Argentina and Brazil.
Swift shared the fitness and health routine that allows her to make it through the long shows. She doesn't drink alcohol, and she spends the day after each string of shows in bed. Her training began six months before the tour began. She would sing the set list out loud while running on a treadmill.
When the SAG-AFTRA strike halted the promotion of blockbuster movies, Swift struck a deal with the union and then bypassed production studios to release her movie with distributor AMC. Her Eras Tour film made more than $200 million globally, according to AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron on X/Twitter.
"Twelve of my last 13 tweets (there's that ubiquitous lucky number 13 again) have been about Taylor Swift. Want to know why?" he posted. "Well there are about 200 million reasons why! Taylor Swift's concert film is the highest grossing in history."
More: Travis Kelce joins Taylor Swift at the top of Billboard charts with Jason Kelce Christmas song duet
Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network's Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Taylor Swift talks Kim Kardashian and Kanye West feud, Travis Kelce
