In a new Beats 1 interview with Zane Lowe, Taylor Swift has discussed early career misogyny and #MeToo, politics, talked about attending “the most emo dinner party”, and her favourite lyricist – a tie between Pete Wentz and Lana Del Rey.
In addition to speaking about new album Lover, Swift discussed how slut-shaming early in her career impacted her, saying “I was 23 and people were … making slideshows of my dating life and putting people in there that I’d sat next to at a party once and deciding that my songwriting was a trick rather than a skill and a craft.
“It’s a way to take a woman who’s doing her job and succeeding at doing her job… [and] completely minimize that skill by [slut-shaming her]. And that happened to me at a very young age, so that was a bit hard. That was one of the first times I was like, ‘Wow, this is not fair.'”
Swift went on to praise the #MeToo movement and other moments where society is “looking at internalized misogyny.”
“We’re looking at the way we treat critiquing women’s bodies. We have amazing women out there like Jameela Jamil saying, ‘I’m not trying to spread body positivity. I’m trying to spread body neutrality where I can sit here and not think about what my body is looking like.'”
In other parts of the interview, Swift discusses turning up to an “emo dinner party” at ‘ME!’ collaborator Brendon Urie’s house, which included Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz in attendance.
“Pete Wentz is probably, if I had to pick a favourite lyricist it would be a tie between him and Lana Del Rey. ‘Blank Space’ is a song that’s just zingers, one after another after another, which I definitely learned from listening to Fall Out Boy.”
Watch a section of the interview below.
