Taylor Swift opens up about the 'isolating experience' of being 'canceled': 'Millions of people hate you very loudly’
Taylor Swift may be having a resurrection of sorts as she gears up to release her seventh studio album Lover with a new sound, lighter look and a more hopeful message than her last album Reputation. But the 29-year-old pop star isn’t neglecting to mention the difficult journey she took to get to her latest piece of work — namely, her infamous feud with Kim Kardashian.
In Vogue’s September 2019 cover story, Swift opens up about what the publication refers to as the “Great Cancellation of 2016” when Kardashian called the singer a “snake” on Twitter and released video of a conversation between Swift and Kanye West discussing the lyrics to the rapper’s song “Famous.” However, when Swift denied having any knowledge that West was going to refer to her as “that b****,” Kardashian’s fan base ignited a campaign to “cancel” Swift.
“A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience,” Swift told Vogue. “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.”
The singer went on to point out that critics seemed to forget that a human being was on the other side of their hateful messages. “You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear,” she said, “or it could also be perceived as, Kill yourself.”
Instead of doing any of those things, Swift said she took time to “restructure my life” and turned to music to preserve her mental health. But she explained that while telling the story of what it was like going through the humiliating experience, she embraced the character that her critics had made of her.
Ultimately, making music through that darker persona seemed to shatter their perspective of the singer completely. And now, she even admitted that it was quite a freeing experience.
“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,” she said.
Still, after creating what Swift called a “love letter to love” with her upcoming album, she won’t allow the people who canceled her to take credit for this new beginning.
“We’re not going to go straight to gratitude with it. Ever. But we’re going to find positive aspects to it,” she said. “We’re never going to write a thank-you note.”
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