In a March 2015 cover story for Vogue, in which she was featured alongside then best friend Karlie Kloss, she said she was “irritated by the whole serial-dater play that people tried to make about me.”
“I just decided I wasn’t willing to provide them that kind of entertainment anymore,” she said. “I wasn’t going to go out on dates and have them be allowed to take pictures and say whatever they wanted about our body language. I wasn’t going to sit next to somebody and flirt with them for five minutes, because I know the next day he’ll be rumored to be my boyfriend. I just kind of took the narrative back. It’s unfortunate I had to do that. And it’s unfortunate that now I have this feeling like if I were to open myself up to love, that would be a career weakness.”
Fast-forward to today, when the list of names Swift has been allegedly linked to includes not only Joe Jonas and John Mayer, but also former “squad” members like Kloss and Dianna Agron.
And, much like it did in 2014, the internet has its own interpretation of Swift’s liner notes. While some see the purported statement and assume it’s about Swift’s sexuality, others have interpreted it as once again rejecting the fascination with her romantic life. Either way, the past nine years have proven that while Swift’s profile has grown, she remains the same artist we’ve come to know. 1989 marked a turning point in her career, her first purely pop album after starting firmly rooted in country music, making some changes in her sound for 2012’s Red, and then exploding in a mainstream pop fireworks show with 1989, reintroducing herself to her audience. Now, by rerecording and releasing 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Swift is underlining that point once again: She’s the same old Taylor, just nine years the wiser.
As she shared in a handwritten message posted to her Instagram at midnight on the album’s release date, “I was born in 1989, reinvented for the first time in 2014, and part of me was reclaimed in 2023 with the re-release of this album I love so dearly.”
A representative for Taylor Swift did not immediately return a request for comment.