Taylor Swift Admits Earning Kanye West’s Respect Was One

Taylor Swift thinks her run-in with Kanye West at the 2009 Video Music Awards may have been a little blessing in disguise. 

The record-breaking pop sensation dished on her relationship with West now, in addition to years of technology fasting, female childhood bullies, and why she’s content with being alone in the November issue of GQ. In a year of superstardom so historically grand that it has numerically surpassed even Michael Jackson, the 25-year-old is setting the record straight on her record-breaking career—again. 

To start, she addresses the new archetype she has been given by some public spectators since debuting her acclaimed music video “Bad Blood” alongside a tribe of Hollywood’s most powerful young women—that of the “calculating” faux-girl’s girl. 

When it comes to attacks on her female posse, Swift simply reflects on a time when girls were not in her corner. 

“I honestly think my lack of female friendships in high school and middle school is why my female friendships are so important now,” she told GQ. “Because I always wanted them. It was just hard for me to have friends.”

While she admits that she gives serious thought to decisions regarding her career, such decisions should not be twisted maliciously to conjure up images of her directing people like chess pieces. 

“You can be accidentally successful for three or four years. Accidents happen, but careers take hard work,” Swift noted. It is that self-awareness that has allowed the young star to maintain a steady trajectory toward success.

“It’s less about reputation management and strategy and vanity than it is about trying desperately to preserve self-awareness, since that seems to be the first thing to go out the door when people find success,” she said.

While the blonde beauty maintains a strong social media presence and pays attention to what fans and critics say about her in an attempt to remain self-aware, there was a time when tabloid attacks drove her to shut off her devices and stay entirely in the dark.

“This was around 2013, when the only thing anyone wanted to write about me was about me and some guy,” she remembered. “It was really damaging. You’re thinking, ‘Everybody goes on dates when they’re 22. It’s fine, right?’ Nope. Not when you’re in this situation.”

By 2013, Swift had already endured her fair share of controversy four years earlier when West publicly humiliated her at the Video Music Awards, claiming she should not have one Best Female Music Video. More than six years later, Swift can confidently say the moment lead to one of the favorite things about her career. 

“That was the most happenstance thing to ever happen in my career and to now be in a place where Kanye and I respect each other—that’s one of my favorite things that has happened in my career,” Swift said. 

It’s clear the former country star has truly hit her stride since releasing her latest album 1989, particularly when record executives didn’t even want her to record the album in the first place. Still, she fought back and won every argument, even when her label made last minute attempts to alter some of the song’s arrangements to appeal to country fans. Her response? “Let’s pick a lane.”

“To me, the safest thing I could do was take the biggest risk. I know how to write a song. I’m not confident about a lot of other aspects of my life, but I know how to write a song,” Swift declared. 

Despite almost a decade of commercial success, Swift knows better than to stop relishing in her career’s sacred moments. 

“During the first few years of your career, the only thing anyone says to you is ‘Enjoy this. Just enjoy this.’ That’s all they ever tell you,” she said. “I finally know how to do that.”

The November issue of GQ will be available on newsstands nationwide on Oct. 26.