“Person of the Year”: Time named Taylor Swift the most influential woman

The year 2023 became a fateful year in Taylor Swift's career. She spoke in a conversation with Time, which named her “Person of the Year,” about the road to success and the obstacles without which this path is unthinkable. The singer calls the “breakthrough moment” in her career the Eras Tour last summer and the $250 million box office that was shown in the documentary filmed from these concerts.

“Over the last 20 years, I have been raised and lowered from the flagpole of public opinion so many times,” Swift said. - They gave me a tiara, and then they took it away. It feels like at 33 I had a breakthrough in my career. And for the first time in my life, I was mentally ready to accept what was associated with it.”

However, according to the artist, it was necessary to reach the very bottom in order to appreciate the title of “person of the year” awarded to her. “It is not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this event were the terrible things that happened to me,” she said. “The first one was canceled within an inch of my life and sanity.” The second is that my life's work was taken away from me because of someone who hates me."

In an interview with Time, Swift elaborated on those two "terrible things" - her now famous "war" with Kanye West and the sale of her music catalog to music mogul Scooter Braun. In 2016, West released the song “Famous,” which included the line: “I made that bitch famous.” In the press, the artist claimed that Swift approved of her, but in fact she did not. West's then-wife Kim Kardashian published a recording of a telephone conversation between Kanye and Taylor, in which the singer allegedly approved the lyrics of the song. A later distributed, full version of the conversation showed that Swift was against it. She admitted to reporters that she regarded the incident as “career death.”

“You have a completely fabricated footage of an illegally recorded conversation that Kim Kardashian edited and then told everyone I was a liar,” Taylor says. “Psychologically it knocked me out so much that I found myself in a place where I had never been before. I moved to another country. I didn’t leave my rented house for a year. I was afraid of phone calls. I pushed a lot of people away because I didn't trust anyone. It was very, very difficult for me.”

After releasing Lover in 2019, the follow-up to 2017's Reputation, Swift found herself in trouble again. This time with the sale of his music catalog by Big Machine Group's Scott Borchetta to renowned music producer Scooter Braun. “As far as Scooter is concerned, the songs were sold to someone who actively wanted them, in my opinion, with nefarious motives. I was so amazed at the sales of my music and the buyers that I thought, “Oh, now they beat me, that's it. I do not know what to do".

Ultimately, Swift re-recorded all of her albums that had been released by Big Machine and presented them as "Taylor's Version." This unprecedented move was followed by even greater commercial success than before, leading the singer to the Eras Tour and a net worth of $1.1 billion. Each concert in the series lasted 3 hours, which allowed Swift to mark each period of her creativity in it.