Taylor Swift won't let fan mania force her to 'lock herself away' like a prisoner

February 23, 2024

Taylor Swift has made and remade herself in front of public eyes a hundred times over. The singer had her big breakthrough with country music only at the age of 16 and ventured into an array of genres including pop, goth punk, and many more. After facing several ups and downs, Taylor seems determined to bring something new to fans with every new album. Despite the headlines and Taylor mania from fans, she says she’ll never ‘lock herself’ away.

The Grammy-winning star Taylor Swift was recently named Time’s Person Of The Year. In a long interview that came with the honor, Taylor finally opened up over the past decade of her career, recent breakthrough, love life with Travis Kelce, and lessons she has learned after facing extreme backlashes in between.

Taylor Swift shares life lessons she learned from bleak moments

Be it a singer who has seen the extremes of being a famous pop star or a regular Joe, growing up can be hard. Taylor Swift had a difficult time as she found fame and was placed on a pedestal as her success grew. But she was then ‘canceled’ by the internet overnight, thanks to the Kanye West drama.

Taylor’s bleak moment of her career so far lasted an entire year.

She described the period of 2016-2017 as her ‘career death.’ But the music icon did not let the backlash define her. She came back stronger than ever with the Reputation album and showed the world she is simply unstoppable.

Yet, the negativity of the Kanye West drama made a severe impact on Taylor’s life. She ended up psychologically in a new place like never 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,” Taylor revealed in the Time interview.

But the hardest point of her life also came with a valuable lesson. Taylor is dead set on one promise, and that is she will never let herself be locked away inside her home and miss out on life’s adventures – despite the mania.

Taylor Swift embracing her ‘unhinged’ era

Over the years, the 34-year-old celebrity has shared how she let public opinion direct her life for a long time. In the Netflix documentary Taylor Swift: Miss Americana, the celebrity confessed about her obsession with the ‘Good girl’ image. She explained how she spent the formative years of her career perfecting it for the world.

But she learned the hard way that pleasing everyone might be an impossible task. Instead, it is better to embrace and nurture one’s true self, ignoring the noise outside. So the singer, who achieved her billionaire status this year, admitted she does not like to be ‘pressed’ about things that don’t matter.

“Over the years, I’ve learned I don’t have the time or bandwidth to get pressed about things that don’t matter. Yes, if I go out to dinner, there’s going to be a whole chaotic situation outside the restaurant. But I still want to go to dinner with my friends.” She shares.

“Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years—I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”