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00:00I think that the lesson is that you shouldn't care so much if you feel
00:08misunderstood by a lot of people who don't know you. As long as you feel
00:13understood by the people who do know you, the people who will show up for you, the people who see you as a human being.
00:19From the beginning, she became part of my life. Her voice just makes you feel like you're not alone.
00:42She was my rock before she was Taylor Swift.
00:46I 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.
00:53I just fell in love with how she celebrated girlhood. It was permission to yearn.
00:59Yeah, exactly. Permission to yearn.
01:02She allows women to connect back to that 16-year-old self. That time in her life when every single glance is, like, apocalyptic.
01:15She's created a community on a scale that's probably never been done before.
01:20Taylor, right here.
01:21The biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift, good morning.
01:25That's a bold introduction. I liked it.
01:27She wasn't the little girl from Nashville anymore. Every time she releases an album, she's selling millions.
01:33How are you going to spend on Valentine's Day? Are you going to see Jake?
01:37And then she suddenly becomes the serial data running through men like paper.
01:42And what started off as just innocent, hey, I write songs about boys. It almost became weaponized.
01:48She's blonde, she's wealthy, she's white. All these kind of start stacking up against her.
01:53No matter where you turn, there was Taylor. Enough of this Taylor Swift person.
01:59Kanye, is Taylor Swift a bitch?
02:01All of a sudden, she's this liar who's deceitful and trying to manipulate people.
02:06She was being called a snake. Hashtag Taylor Swift is cancelled.
02:11This was really just a life and death moment.
02:14I absolutely loved the force with which Taylor came back.
02:19Whenever adversity comes her way, she comes back like the Avengers.
02:23It's like, not only does she win, she wins big.
02:26Oh, like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends and I think, frankly, that's a very sexist angle to take.
02:31You just can't win a media war against Taylor Swift. You know, it's a fool's errand.
02:37I think it's undeniable. She's the most powerful musical artist in the world.
03:01When 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 devotion from fans that you do associate with large religious movements.
03:21She has a sense that there's a story that she's telling.
03:26The story was always about fans and it's always about her deep connection with them.
03:31She started in country music, which really prides itself on authenticity.
03:35And so that really kind of cemented this, you know, connection or bringing, you know, fans together with Taylor.
03:40I mean, country is a really notoriously white genre of music with conservative, with a small c, values.
03:48So Taylor coming up through country really cemented her into this lane of being America's perfect, blonde, all-American sweetheart.
03:57The American people, when we pledge our allegiance to the flag, feel renewed respect and love for all it represents.
04:18Ever since the disaster, a wave of patriotism has been spreading across America.
04:31Blue collar fans and family proudly showing their colors and embracing the music that gives voice to the lives they live.
04:40I started dragging my parents to festivals and fairs and karaoke contests when I was like 10 and came to Nashville for the first time when I was 11.
04:49And I had this demo CD of me singing karaoke music and walked into every major record label and was like, hey, I'm Taylor.
04:56I'm 11. I want a record deal. You know, call me.
05:01So, you know, what I can see here is that as she's talking about how she tried to get her career off the ground, you know, she's very charming.
05:09You know, she's a little bit self-deprecating in the fact that she realized, OK, that wasn't going to work.
05:13But at the same time, she's extremely confident.
05:16What, you know, pre-teenager has the gumption to go into a big record label in Nashville and say, I'm talented enough. Give me a record deal.
05:25You know, who does that?
05:34You can see here, she is the kind of person who takes what she does, even as a small kid, very, very seriously.
05:48Dear Diary, sorry about the long wait. Boy, do I have a lot to tell you. New York, the best.
05:58I met a guitar slash country singer named Taylor Swift. She was nice, and I think we can be friends.
06:04I was 12. My family and I went to Point Pleasant Beach, which is the New Jersey shore.
06:18They had this boardwalk called Jenkinson's, and I heard country music playing and found Taylor on this little makeshift stage with about 20 people around her playing these songs.
06:33These songs I'd never heard.
06:36This is a song I wrote yesterday, and it's about a girl who's just different.
06:42And I really like it because it's just so happy. So this is called Lucky You.
06:49This video shows exactly how she performed that day on the boardwalk.
06:52She was so talented and beautiful. I was just in awe of her stage presence.
06:58She was confident, and she was just having fun.
07:01Here, Taylor is singing about a young girl who was born very different than everybody else, and she doesn't care.
07:21She's okay with that. Taylor sang about things that I cared about and that I related to, so I was absolutely mesmerized from the get-go.
07:31She was my age, which was wild to me. She was up there in front of everybody. I could never imagine doing something like that.
07:38When Taylor was done playing, her brother Austin was there with her handing out demo CDs.
07:47And so yeah, I went over, talked to her for a very little bit, and had her sign a little demo CD for me.
07:54I 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.
08:07That CD was my constant. That CD was my, to not sound incredibly weird, but my friend.
08:14This photograph is of me and Taylor. It's the picture that was taken, my mom took it, of our first encounter.
08:23You 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.
08:29That's really interesting to see because the relationship that her and I had was more like two girlfriends.
08:57I mean, we just cracked up all the time.
09:03The very first time that I met Taylor, when I said, Taylor, I said, what's your goal?
09:08She says, I want a gold record. And what that means is that you need to sell 500,000 copies of a record.
09:14And I'm like, great, let's go meet 500,000 people.
09:18No one told us it was country night. Y'all want to hear some country music?
09:28Mommy's in that video.
09:29Yeah. Is that you right there?
09:31You can see that Taylor was incredibly driven and incredibly determined and incredibly young.
09:50In 2007, we did 300-ish shows. We lived on Up To Her Best that had been previously owned by Cher.
10:00So it was like decked out in leopard print. I slept on the bottom bunk and she was on the top bunk.
10:05Sort of was like having a little sister that was also your boss.
10:09She was somebody who always knew what she wanted. I would see her being interviewed constantly.
10:16Speak to radio stations, signing autographs.
10:18Your eyes are so gorgeous. They're so amazing.
10:22My mom took me for my birthday when I didn't have any friends.
10:24No way. Yeah.
10:26You can see she was very excited.
10:29She would sign autographs to anyone as long as they were willing to stand and wait for her.
10:34So sometimes that lasted hours and hours.
10:37She wanted people to feel better when she left than before she arrived.
10:43You can't teach that in business school. You can't teach that anywhere.
10:46You either have it or you don't have it.
10:54The first Taylor Swift song I heard was Teardrops On My Guitar.
10:58My dad and I have always bonded through music.
11:01We were at my parents' house in New Jersey and we had just finished dinner and he put it on the speaker.
11:08My dad picked me up in his arms and he told me to lay my head on his shoulder.
11:17And we were slow dancing around the living room to teardrops on my guitar.
11:21And he told me, he whispered in my ear, I will never forget this, he whispered in my ear,
11:25one day you're going to dance with someone that you love just like this.
11:35Teardrops On My Guitar is just such a wonderful, beautiful, slow, sad song to just kind of weep to.
11:41She's comparing herself to the girl that her crush is in love with.
11:59She's wondering, you know, why not me?
12:02I bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about.
12:06She sees herself as, you know, the odd one out, as the weird girl, as the not popular girl.
12:12And she's got everything that I have to live without.
12:17But she's saying, when you're a young woman, it is so easy to compare yourself to others.
12:22And think, oh, if this little thing changed, then this person will like me.
12:29I love love.
12:30I love writing about it.
12:31I love studying it.
12:32I love watching it.
12:34And I love all the things that go into it.
12:36You know, I got a call from my editor and he said, there's, you know, this new artist, Taylor Swift.
12:45I think you need to go interview her.
12:48I was running a recorder because I was with her for many hours, just following her around.
12:55One thing I have to say about the tapes is that you hear somebody who is pretty honest.
13:02I only write about things I'm going through.
13:04It's got to be personal for me.
13:06You know, I've definitely written songs, you know, when you're crying on the bathroom floor.
13:10Because we've always got emotions going on.
13:12We've always got a little hint that I miss him or I love him or I wish I had him or I wish I told him this.
13:22You're going through something and the only way that you know how to verbalize it is through music.
13:28Yeah, I like someone I can't tell them, I write about a song.
13:32Yeah.
13:33Yeah.
13:38In 2008, the financial crash happens, right?
13:41And the world is kind of plunged into this global recession.
13:44Music sales drop, particularly CDs.
13:47But Taylor does this quite incredible feat of bucking that trend and actually selling albums.
13:53This is my album that came out in October and I wrote every song on the album.
13:58So I'm pretty excited about it.
14:00And let me, seriously, if we're doing show and tell, this, my friends, is my gold record.
14:06I can see this video and know she's received something she's really proud of.
14:11All of her hard work is starting to pay off.
14:13She taps into this market that is not really being served by the music industry at this moment in time.
14:23Young women and girls who are looking for someone who can essentially be a proxy for their feelings, right?
14:29Someone who they can relate to, can sing songs that they feel have been written for them and about their lives.
14:34I just fell in love with how she celebrated girlhood and how she gave me permission to feel all my big feelings.
14:43It was permission to yearn.
14:46Yep, exactly. Permission to yearn.
14:49It really wasn't a mold for it.
14:52You know, she wasn't sexy. She wasn't doing this, like, girl-woman thing like a Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera.
14:59That was a very important message for that time because it showed that women didn't need to be sexualized to be famous.
15:072009 was a big year for Taylor. She was having such a wonderful time.
15:20I was really looking forward to the VMAs.
15:23Made some popcorn and sat down on the couch and turned on the VMAs and was watching it and it was going great.
15:28And then...
15:29Taylor Swift.
15:31I got this amazing high when Taylor won her award and was like, oh my god, I'm so excited for her.
15:36And she looked so happy.
15:38And then all of a sudden somebody runs up on stage and my stomach dropped.
15:42I'm really happy for you. I'm gonna let you finish.
15:44But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.
15:47As he was talking, you just saw her face fall.
15:52She looked so vulnerable.
15:54The way she was sort of, like, playing with the award, it's heartbreaking.
16:00And I can't imagine thinking all of those people are booing you.
16:14Yo, Taylor.
16:16I'm really happy for you. I'm gonna let you finish.
16:19But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.
16:22At that moment, I am so proud of her because she stayed quiet.
16:36That was a conversation that Taylor and I had years before that.
16:39Humility and grace.
16:42As I said, somebody give Kanye a hug.
16:45We cannot buy that kind of publicity.
16:47Now they're all going to Yahoo and Google.
16:50Who's this Taylor Swift? Who's this Taylor Swift?
16:52Boom.
16:54Kanye West was huge, you know.
16:56At the time, he was one of the most prolific and celebrated rappers and producers in history.
17:01Taylor Swift grew up listening to songs off his first album.
17:05When that happened, the day after Kanye West immediately went on television to apologize.
17:10You can see he regrets it.
17:13He wishes he didn't do it.
17:15I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong and it wasn't a spectacle or just, you know,
17:22it's actually someone's emotions, you know, that I stepped on.
17:27And it was very, it was just, it was rude, period.
17:30And, you know, I'd like to be able to apologize to her in person.
17:34It really kind of sets Taylor up to be this kind of woman who's always in the victim position.
17:41And she takes to music to kind of right some of these wrongs.
17:58Being here is incredible.
17:59I'm excited and I'm nervous.
18:01And, you know, whenever I'm feeling strong emotions about something like this, I usually write a song about it.
18:08She's a storyteller.
18:09She 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.
18:20And when somebody hijacks your story, it's hard to know where to go with that.
18:27You might be expecting me to say something bad about Kanye and how he ran up on the stage and ruined my VMA monologue.
18:40But there's nothing more to say, because everything's okay, I've got security lining the stage.
18:53But see, here's this is this is one of the things I think it's just she appreciates the humor.
19:01She appreciates the story.
19:02She's back in control of the narrative.
19:05She has an incredible amount of wealth and privilege, but she is still able to write that underdog's narrative, right, really, really well, because I think she has felt it, you know, and has experienced that in the past.
19:21She's very poised, especially from a very young age.
19:39You know, people didn't know what to make of her.
19:41She was in high school still taking regular classes and then jetting off to sing the national anthem.
19:46She's the straight A student, she's the goody-goody, she's the perfect girl.
19:50In her school, kids are saying, ew, you're weird.
19:53Like, why are you even doing that?
19:55You have frizzy hair.
19:57We were in middle school and anything that makes a difference in middle school would be weird.
20:02I would sit down and go on table and the girls would play at the booth.
20:06They'd be like, what did you do this weekend?
20:09I was, you know, playing at a coffee house that weekend.
20:13They took me out of their social scene automatically.
20:16And they couldn't really like me more.
20:19The first time of my life, I felt really, really well.
20:28I think whatever she experienced, she felt very deeply.
20:32Taylor takes slights very seriously.
20:36She has always written about the things that she has felt most deeply.
20:41And so those are the kinds of things that came out in her first songs.
20:48I just want to learn the simple.
20:54Do I have to do that?
20:56Okay.
20:57No, you don't have to do anything.
20:59She's like, do I have to do that?
21:01Like, to play this song?
21:02Am I going to have to play that crazy chord you're playing?
21:05Taylor and I started writing in 2003.
21:08She showed me a song that she wrote called The Outside.
21:11Just feeling like she was, you know, she wasn't part of the group, the gang.
21:16And she also knew, I think, that she had something special to offer the world.
21:20So that makes it a little tougher to fit in.
21:23But I remember when she was singing the song and she was in the studio.
21:27This is the lyric sheet.
21:28So she's got the lyric sheet on a music stand with a pencil.
21:31She put the world over here and she's over here and the world is here.
21:36That's how outside she felt.
21:38So how can I ever try to be better?
21:41Nobody lets me in.
21:42I can still see you.
21:44This ain't the best view on the outside looking in.
21:48A couple of months after I got back from New Jersey and I had met Taylor,
21:54I encountered a situation that was something that a child should never have to encounter.
22:03And I was so grateful to have Taylor.
22:08And her CD was something of armor for me.
22:14She was somebody I would write to in my diary because I couldn't talk to anybody else.
22:19Hi, Taylor.
22:20I hid in my room and blasted Lucky You all weekend.
22:23It's getting bad.
22:25I put stacks of books in front of the doors and check if they moved.
22:31I asked for locks, but no way, Jose.
22:34I want to live somewhere happy, but I'm scared of everything.
22:39I listen to Lucky You in the shower all the time.
22:42And that was not always a safe place for me.
22:45And so when I had her music playing and I was singing her music and I was okay.
22:52And I felt safe.
22:53Something about her voice just makes you feel like you're not alone.
22:58She saved me.
22:59She was so loud or she was.
23:04She grabbed me.
23:06Hey guys!
23:07Hey!
23:08Good luck!
23:09Thank you so much!
23:11No, I think I'm going to carry them as long as they'll let me have them.
23:14This is the dream come true.
23:18It's like I've never been presumptuous about dreams, and when you have crazy dreams like,
23:25I wonder what it would be like to win a Grammy someday.
23:28I never actually could fathom that it might happen until I was walking up there and winning one.
23:35By 2010, she's finally made it. She's having hit records in the pop realm.
23:40She's winning awards after awards, and finally she is at the Grammy Awards
23:44to sing a very high-profile performance with Stevie Nicks, who is someone that she idolizes.
24:05She can perform maybe is like up to her usual caliber.
24:08You know, she was on a massive stage. She's singing with someone she greatly admires.
24:12I think she just had an off night.
24:14You know, people say that she's out of tune, that she sounds flat, that she doesn't hold a candle to Stevie Nicks,
24:18and she famously attracts the ire of a music critic called Bob Lefsetz,
24:23who is notorious for not holding his punches.
24:27Taylor's performance was, quote, dreadful. Now everyone knows Taylor Swift can't sing.
24:32He asked, did Taylor Swift kill her career overnight? I'll argue she did.
24:37In one fell swoop, Taylor Swift consigned herself to the dustbin of teen phenoms.
24:42Taylor's too young and dumb to understand the mistakes she made, he wrote,
24:47suggesting that she should have used auto-tune.
24:49You know, at heart, you know, she's a perfectionist, and she wants people to like her.
24:53And to this point, she's received a lot of praise for her writing.
24:56To read something like what Bob Lefsetz said would be devastating.
24:59I think after you're backed into a corner with all of this criticism,
25:03I love how Taylor's reaction is not to cower, but to reach out and take up even more space.
25:09You can take me down with just one single blow
25:16What you don't know, what you don't know
25:20Taylor Swift did not take Bob Lefsetz's criticism lying down.
25:24Here, she is standing up for herself.
25:27Like she did so many other times when she went through something hard,
25:30she wrote a song about it.
25:31Someday I'll be living in a big old city
25:37And all you're ever gonna be is mean
25:41Yeah, you know, she's able to kind of settle scores,
25:46have the last word as a way to kind of tell people what she really thinks
25:49and how she really feels.
25:51Someday I'll be living in a big old city
25:56And all you're ever gonna be is mean
26:01It was just a real anthem for just keep doing your thing and be happy.
26:06Don't be mean. Don't be like those people.
26:09Why you gotta be so mean?
26:12Here, it lets her control the narrative in a way that nobody can take away.
26:19You don't pick fights with somebody who's gonna sell 10 million copies of the song
26:24that they end up writing about you.
26:26This one really means a lot to me because this is for a song called Mean that I wrote.
26:30And there's really no feeling quite like writing a song about someone who's really mean to you
26:36and someone who completely hates you and makes your life miserable and then winning a Grammy for it.
26:42There is a great deal of satisfaction on that face right there in that screenshot.
26:46There have not been many conflicts that Taylor has not been able to turn to her advantage.
26:55You know, it might suck now. Someone's bullying you.
26:57Yeah.
26:58Someone's being mean to you.
26:59But someday, I'll be living in a big old city
27:05and all you're ever gonna be is mean.
27:09See, every girl that was bullied knows everyone to mean.
27:12A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
27:14You want Taylor? Taylor, are you dating Taylor?
27:19You got Taylor for that mom shield approval.
27:21Is your mom like Taylor?
27:23Is it dating?
27:24Kiss, kiss, kiss.
27:28Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.
27:30Give her a kiss, man. I gotta make some money on my video.
27:33Where Taylor does differ from, you know, other artists is that she also invites people in to speculate about that personal life.
27:43Some of the songs on here, all of the songs on here, are about boys and love.
27:48Yes.
27:49Anyone in particular?
27:50There are a couple people that they're about, actually.
27:54Like maybe, um, that guy?
27:57There's one that's about that guy.
28:00Uh-huh.
28:01That guy's not in my life anymore, unfortunately.
28:04Here is 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.
28:14She is inviting a certain journalistic impulse to figure out who is it then.
28:19And when I look at that person, I'm not even going to be able to remember the boy who broke up with me over the phone in 25 seconds when I was 18.
28:29She's making it clear that, you know, she's going through exactly what her songs are talking about and exactly what her fans are talking about.
28:36And, 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.
28:43Hi, Taylor. How are you going to spend Valentine's Day? Are you going to see Jake?
28:49She probably didn't realize that her dating various different men would invite this much tabloid speculation.
28:55But all of a sudden, you know, she's not talking about some jock in high school.
28:58She's talking about a big movie star. She's talking about another pop star.
29:03And I think that level of blowback she was not quite ready for.
29:07All right, let's talk about your number one hit where we are never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to get back together.
29:13Is that? Who's that about? Here's what I'll do. You don't have to say. I'm going to show pictures.
29:18I don't know what I'm... You're supposed to ring.
29:21But I don't want to. I don't want to.
29:23I'll ring.
29:24Because they'll send me angry emails, but I don't want to get them.
29:26I'll hold it for you.
29:27I'll hold it for you.
29:33What are you doing to me?
29:39Stop it, stop it, stop it!
29:40Okay, all right, all right.
29:42It makes me feel so bad about myself. Every time I come up here, you put, like, a different dude up there on the screen.
29:47She's showing that she's trapped, but she feels like she has no right to complain about it.
29:55They 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.
30:03Yeah.
30:04There's these unachievable expectations that are placed upon young women and girls, where it's like, oh, have fun, but not like that.
30:13Oh, be successful, but not like that.
30:16You're getting these great songs out of breakups.
30:19Oh, come on.
30:20Do you really want to be in the relationship?
30:22No, no, okay, this is like...
30:23I think maybe you don't want to release it for, like, 15 years.
30:25Get about four or five more albums out of heartbreak, then settle down.
30:29Does that not make sense?
30:30That's a pretty good game plan for you, Taylor.
30:32Mm-hmm.
30:33You can thank me later.
30:34Yeah.
30:35I look at this, though, and it makes me so mad because she is clearly uncomfortable.
30:39People don't want to talk about her music.
30:41After a certain point, they want to talk about her personal life.
30:44If I could talk to my 19-year-old self, I'd just say, hey, you know, you're going to date just like a normal 20-something should be allowed to, but you're going to be a national lightning rod for slut-shaming.
30:57Here at this point, she's very much trying to say how unfair it is that she is getting treated this way.
31:03You know, it's very indicative of the sexism that she's always faced in the music industry.
31:09I just wanted to show the legs, because as I was telling you ahead of time, you're going to walk home with more than maybe just a trophy tonight.
31:16I think lots of men.
31:18There's a split second, which I find so interesting on Taylor's face, where she is shocked that someone has told her this.
31:24Like, she's basically being accused of being promiscuous on live television on a red carpet.
31:28I'm not going to walk home with any men tonight.
31:30I live on a farm and run around Fairfield all the time.
31:40Yeah.
31:41It was just a really, really cool childhood.
31:43Why did you guys go to church when you were younger?
31:47First, we went to First Presbyterian.
31:48Then, we switched to a church of Christ.
31:49Then, we went to Nashville.
31:50We went to Baptist for a little while.
31:52You know, I have faith no matter where I go.
31:54I think Taylor thinks of her childhood as incredibly idyllic.
32:15What were the rules in your house?
32:16I mean, did you have curfew?
32:17Did you have stuff like that?
32:18I always had to keep my work sweet.
32:19I always had to do my homework.
32:20I had to call my mom when I got anywhere and let her know where I was.
32:22There really wasn't a rule against dating because I didn't date anyone when I was about 15.
32:28Did you have your first kiss when you were 15 or was it younger than that?
32:48One incredibly significant thing about Taylor Swift is that her parents were well-to-do.
32:55And they did not, you know, quote-unquote, need her money.
32:59This was a family project to get Taylor to stardom.
33:04I think that was always the plan for her, to be as famous as she is now.
33:09What I watched was all the tools being put in the box to get her there.
33:14And I don't mean to be, I really am not trying to be a prude here,
33:16but if I'm the mom of a 10-year-old girl in the audience,
33:19there were just a couple of moves there that I would be like, no, you're right, you're right.
33:24You can see her mom, you know, was her chaperone.
33:27Her mom was her confidant.
33:28You know, her mom has been her support system.
33:31My mom and I have always been really close, and she's always been the friend that was always there.
33:37You know, there were times when in middle school and junior high, I didn't have a lot of friends.
33:42But my mom was always my friend.
33:44Watching that, Taylor is so much of her mother's influence.
33:48If there had been no Andrea, there would probably be no Taylor Swift.
33:53She was functioning as a manager, as a personal assistant, but also as a mom.
33:58I mean, she essentially gave up her life to help her daughter pursue her career.
34:04There are so many people that deserve to be thanked for this, but I'm just going to thank one.
34:09And 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.
34:17And she gave that all away and left it all behind to go on the road with her 16-year-old daughter.
34:23And then she was sleeping in rental cars and in airplanes with her mouth hanging wide open because she was so tired.
34:33And so, Mom, thank you so much. I love you. This is for you.
34:40Those things that she said in that speech were so accurate.
34:43You know, she gave up everything for her to have that opportunity.
34:47I think you always think your parents need to sacrifice for you.
34:51Realizing that they don't have to, and they choose to, is something different.
34:56That's what I saw.
35:10This is the moment where she moves to New York and kind of almost like reinvents herself,
35:16kind of like every other young woman who moves to New York ever does.
35:19Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud and happy to have a young lady who has now become, believe it or not,
35:26the biggest pop star on the planet, Taylor Swift. Good morning.
35:30That's a bold introduction. I liked it.
35:32Well, six of the top ten are yours.
35:34Yeah, it's been good.
35:36During the 1989 era, I think she was very much over the only being asked about who she was dating.
35:41So she was like, fuck that. I'm going to move to New York. I'm going to hang out with my girlfriends.
35:46I'm going to, like, live my life a little and not have it be about a boy.
35:53With 1989, it's really clear what Taylor is doing. She is reinventing herself as a new kind of musician, a more mature songwriter.
36:06It's a really difficult transition for a lot of musicians to make, and she just does it so well.
36:12And the songs are, you know, enormously catchy.
36:15You know, you would be hard pressed to find a music critic who doesn't agree that that album is a kind of pop masterpiece.
36:22I think why Shake It Off works is because it is such a classic pop song.
36:40You know, there's a kind of call and response bit where she talks to your audience, the audience talks back.
36:45And I think that's what really resonated with a lot of people.
36:48I 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.
37:00I'll be the crazy cat lady.
37:02And in the first moment, it's just her with her cat, just like.
37:13This is ushering in a new era of, I know I have a reputation.
37:18It's gonna be forever, or it's gonna go down in flames.
37:22Those are the only two options.
37:24We're gonna be together forever, or it's going to go down in flames.
37:27Yeah.
37:28There's no just normal relationship.
37:30Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game.
37:35I really think she's like talking to the media there.
37:37Like, you love the game I play.
37:39Like, I sell your news.
37:42I sell your magazines.
37:43I sell, like I, all those clicks on your site because of me.
37:47But I've got a blank space baby.
37:50And I'll write your name.
37:52To say, I've got a blank space baby, and I'll write your name.
37:56It's a nod to every time she goes on a talk show, and it's like,
37:59well, who is it now?
38:00Who is it now?
38:01Who is it now?
38:02And to turn that into this little, well, I've got a blank space.
38:05Who is it now?
38:06Who is it now?
38:07Who is it now?
38:08Who is it now?
38:09Who is it now?
38:10Who is it now?
38:11Who is it now?
38:12Who is it now?
38:13Who is it now?
38:14In the mid-2010s, she's riding high off 1989, and this feud that she's had with Kanye West
38:20is slowly kind of defrosting.
38:23She's also talked about how she wanted to be liked.
38:26You know, this whole kind of good girl, people-pleasing side to her kind of came out,
38:31especially given that she'd grown up listening to Kanye's music.
38:34It felt important to her to gain and win back his respect.
38:38She even presents the MTV Vanguard Award to him at the VMAs,
38:42and that is widely perceived to be a sign that they've just squashed the beef.
38:46So I guess I have to say to all the other winners tonight,
38:49I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish.
38:56But Kanye West has had one of the greatest careers of all time!
39:01I mean, it's a really sweet video, and I think it really says something about Taylor's approach to relationships.
39:08And really terrible slash fascinating from a hindsight perspective.
39:13I am honored to present the 2015 Vanguard Award to my friend Kanye West.
39:20And she's also using humor to defuse the situation, right?
39:26It's like, why poke the bear again? You know, why bring it back up?
39:33And then here's this video of Kanye and Taylor.
39:40It seemed like two friends wanting to support each other's growth and willing to do anything for each other.
39:49So my next single, I wanted you to tweet it.
39:53So that's why I'm calling you, that I wanted you to put the song out.
39:56I guess it would just be people would be like, why is this happening?
40:00The reason why it would be happening is because it has a very controversial line at the beginning of the song about you.
40:08Well, is it gonna be mean?
40:10No, I don't think it's mean.
40:13Okay, then let me hear it.
40:15Okay, it says, um, to all my south side that know me best.
40:21I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.
40:29That's about me.
40:30Okay.
40:39Our nation was founded on a bedrock principle.
40:42That we are all created equal.
40:45This morning, the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality.
40:52The American dream is dead.
40:55But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before.
41:07And we will make America great again.
41:12Fight back! Fight back!
41:15No peace!
41:17Hold me!
41:20Taylor can only talk about certain things in certain ways at certain points in her life.
41:25Then there's also the world around her changing.
41:28Taylor!
41:29People expected more from pop stars.
41:31But, you know, she had a track record at that point of talking about her own personal issues.
41:37You know, she was talking about her life.
41:38For 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.
41:45Right there. Right there, sister.
41:47Come on. Come on.
41:48Okay.
41:49Come on!
41:50So, you know, what I can see here is that she is so careful about what she says in public and is always very thoughtful and careful about what she says.
41:58Politics was potentially part of her life, but it wasn't anything she necessarily talked about.
42:04People forget how young she was.
42:06I think she was still trying to figure out what she stood for, what she wanted to say.
42:10She was just living her life and enjoying her success.
42:21Taylor is basically riding high and she's got the girl squad.
42:24You know, this group of women that she would surround herself with.
42:28Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid.
42:31People looked at the mainly white, very attractive, conventionally successful women.
42:37What's up with that?
42:40Because 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.
42:51I think she thought that that was going to be above any kind of criticism or judgment.
42:56She would have, you know, amazing over the top 4th of July parties and they would all be Instagrammed and, you know, she would be hanging out with her friends.
43:03I mean, she was enjoying being young and she really, she faced a lot of backlash for it.
43:08People just thought, this all just seems a little bit manufactured.
43:13Like, do you seriously want us to believe that on one night you're hanging out with Lorde, then you're going for dinner with Selena, then you're hanging out for a sleepover with Lena Dunham.
43:22And it just seems a little bit kind of unbelievable.
43:26No matter where you turned, there was Taylor.
43:31Enough of this Taylor Swift person.
43:34People wanted more and more and more and more from her.
43:37And they're like, whoa, you're too much. You're too much.
43:40She was everywhere. 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.
43:52In 2016 Kanye West released a song called Famous where he basically raps, you know, I made that bitch famous, referring to the VMA's stage invasion.
44:11It'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.
44:35Taylor 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, like, be naked in bed with you. Like, I didn't know that this was happening. You didn't ask me if this was okay.
44:53There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.
45:06But if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack you, 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.
45:19And that will be the greatest feeling in the world. Thank you for this moment.
45:24Here is a moment where you find Taylor in a very avenging mood. You know, she's angry.
45:31Taylor hits back and says, I did not give permission to be referenced in this song. Like, I did not, you know, approve this lyric.
45:39And unfortunately for Taylor, at this point in time, Kanye West is also married to Kim Kardashian, who also has a really ironclad understanding of how to work media narrative and how to come out looking like the underdog.
45:53Kim proceeds to edit up a video of this phone call to make it sound like Taylor, like, gave her full blown approval.
46:00It's just like, it's a really cool thing to do, like, and a really good show of friendship. So thank you.
46:07Oh, thank you too.
46:09And, you know, if people ask me about it, I think it would be great for me to be like, look, she called me and told me the line before it came out. Like, jokes about you guys. We're fine.
46:18We're fine.
46:19When Kim tweets this video, she adds a snake emoji and the internet ran with that. She was being called a snake. It was part of hashtags. The hashtag Taylor Swift is over party. Hashtag Taylor Swift is canceled.
46:35She could have saved a million babies and solved world hunger and nobody would have cared. It wouldn't have mattered.
46:58Kanye is Taylor Swift the bitch.
47:00People blew this out of proportion. I mean, she was getting death threats.
47:07To have something at that magnitude just go completely off the rails and there was no stopping that train, no matter what she did.
47:18I think it must have been really horrendous for Taylor to have to go through this because she starts her career as this homespun folksy country gal from Nashville, Tennessee.
47:35Then all of a sudden she's this liar who's deceitful and trying to manipulate people and has been caught red handed.
47:41And I think that was part of the glee with which people were taking her down with because she vindicated all these things that people have been saying about her and depressed about her playing the victim.
47:50So 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 Taylor?
47:57I 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.
48:04Who knows what would come next? So she had to retreat and regroup and figure out because, you know, could this be the end of her career?
48:11We can always rely on this lot for a comforting dose of drama. Stream New Made in Chelsea now with Livvy, Jack and Kit, the talk of SW3 at the minute.
48:30Taylor's story continues next here. Can she bounce back to conquer the world once more? I reckon she might. Part two, on the way.
48:41Taylor's story continues next here.
48:46Taylor's story continues next here.
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