135 Facts About Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13,1989 and is an American singer-songwriter.

Taylor Swift is the highest-grossing touring artist, the richest female musician, and the first billionaire with music as the primary source of income.

Taylor Swift incorporated rock on Speak Now and electronic on Red, later re-calibrating her image from country to pop with the synth-pop set 1989 ; the ensuing media scrutiny inspired the hip-hop-imbued Reputation.

Taylor Swift experimented with subdued pop genres on Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department, and began re-recording her Big Machine albums as Taylor's Version due to an ownership dispute with the label.

Taylor Swift has embarked on six concert tours, including the Eras Tour, the highest-grossing tour of all time.

Taylor Swift has been listed amongst history's greatest artists by publications such as Rolling Stone and Billboard, as well as the only individual from the arts to have been named the Time Person of the Year.

Taylor Swift's accolades include 14 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a record five IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year awards.

Taylor Swift is the most-awarded artist of the American Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards.

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13,1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania.

Taylor Swift's father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift, worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.

Taylor Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania that her father had purchased from one of his clients, and she spent her summers at her family's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, where she occasionally performed acoustic songs at a local coffee shop.

Taylor Swift is Christian and attended preschool and kindergarten at a Montessori school run by the Bernardine Sisters of St Francis before transferring to the Wyndcroft School.

At 11, Taylor Swift traveled to Nashville with her mother to visit record labels and submit demo tapes of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers.

Taylor Swift was rejected by all the labels, which led her to focus on songwriting.

Taylor Swift started learning the guitar at 12 with the help of Ronnie Cremer, a computer repairman and local musician who assisted Swift with writing an original song.

Taylor Swift attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to Aaron Academy after two years, which better accommodated her touring schedule through homeschooling.

In Nashville, Taylor Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose.

Taylor Swift had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say.

Taylor Swift left RCA Records due to the label's lack of care and their "cut[ting] other people's stuff".

At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Taylor Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records.

Taylor Swift was one of Big Machine's first signings, and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000.

Taylor Swift began working on her eponymous debut album with Nathan Chapman.

Taylor Swift wrote or co-wrote all album tracks, and co-writers included Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia.

Taylor Swift became the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a platinum-certified debut album.

Taylor Swift spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour and television appearances; she opened for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour, as a replacement for Eric Church.

Taylor Swift promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours in 2006 and 2007, including those by George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

Taylor Swift won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor.

Taylor Swift was nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

In 2009, Taylor Swift toured as an opening act for Keith Urban and embarked on her first headlining tour, the Fearless Tour.

That year, Taylor Swift won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album.

Taylor Swift won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story".

At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Taylor Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.

Taylor Swift featured on "Half of My Heart" by John Mayer, whom she was romantically linked with in late 2009.

Taylor Swift wrote and recorded "Today Was a Fairytale" for the soundtrack of Valentine's Day, in which she had her acting debut.

At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Taylor Swift performed "Mean", which won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance.

At the American Music Awards of 2011, Taylor Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album.

On Red, Taylor Swift worked with Chapman and new producers including Max Martin, Shellback, Dan Wilson, Jeff Bhasker, Dann Huff, and Butch Walker, resulting in a genre-spanning record that incorporated eclectic styles of pop and rock such as Britrock, dubstep, and dance-pop.

At the 2014 Country Music Association Awards, Taylor Swift was honored with the Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient in history after Garth Brooks.

Taylor Swift continued writing songs for films and featuring on other artists' releases.

Taylor Swift wrote and produced "Sweeter than Fiction" with Jack Antonoff for the soundtrack to One Chance.

Taylor Swift was a voice actress in The Lorax, made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl, and had a supporting role in the dystopian film The Giver.

From 2010 to 2013, Taylor Swift was romantically involved with the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, the political heir Conor Kennedy, and the singer Harry Styles.

In March 2014, Taylor Swift began living in New York City, which she credited as a creative influence on her fifth studio album, 1989.

Taylor Swift described 1989 as her first "official pop album" and produced it with Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami.

Taylor Swift then agreed to keep 1989 and her catalog on Apple Music.

Taylor Swift was named Billboards Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice.

In 2015, Taylor Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist.

Taylor Swift dated the DJ Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016.

Taylor Swift recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Zayn Malik for the soundtrack to Fifty Shades Darker and won a Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year with "Better Man", which she wrote for the band Little Big Town.

In late 2016, after briefly dating Tom Hiddleston, Taylor Swift began a six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn and retreated herself from the public spotlight.

At the 2018 American Music Awards, Taylor Swift won four awards, which made her accumulate 23 trophies in total and become the AMAs' most awarded female musician, surpassing Whitney Houston.

The contract included a provision for Taylor Swift to maintain ownership of her masters.

Taylor Swift produced the album with Antonoff, Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little.

At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, Taylor Swift won three awards including Video of the Year for "You Need to Calm Down", becoming the first female and second artist overall to win the category for a self-directed video.

Taylor Swift said she had been trying to buy the masters, but Big Machine would allow her to do so only if she exchanged one new album for each older one under a new contract, which she refused to sign.

In November 2020, Taylor Swift began re-recording her back catalog, which enabled her to own the new masters and the licensing of her songs for commercial use, substituting for the Big Machine-owned masters.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Taylor Swift surprise-released two "sister albums" that she recorded and produced with Antonoff and Aaron Dessner: Folklore in July and Evermore in December.

Taylor Swift played Bombalurina in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, for which she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts".

Taylor Swift won six American Music Awards including Artist of the Year in 2022.

At the MTV Video Music Awards, Taylor Swift won her third and fourth trophies for Video of the Year with All Too Well: The Short Film, her self-directed short film that accompanies "All Too Well ", in 2022 and "Anti-Hero" in 2023.

Taylor Swift became the first artist to win Album of the Year four times in Grammy history.

Besides music, Taylor Swift had a supporting role in the period comedy film Amsterdam.

In 2023, Taylor Swift was the most streamed artist on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music; and the first act to place number one on the year-end Billboard top artists list in three different decades.

Taylor Swift had five out of the 10 best-selling albums of 2023 in the US, a record since Luminate began tracking US music sales in 1991.

In March 2023, Taylor Swift embarked on the Eras Tour, a retrospective tour covering all her studio albums.

From 2023 onward, Taylor Swift found ubiquitous success, albeit more dominant than before, with the successes of the re-recordings, the Eras Tour, its concert film, Midnights, and The Tortured Poets Department, significantly increasing her net worth; Music Business Worldwide remarked this as a "new stratosphere of global career success" for Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift was Spotify's most streamed artist in 2024.

In January 2024, AI-generated fake pornographic images portraying Taylor Swift were posted to Twitter and spread to other social media platforms, spurring criticism and demands for legal reform.

Taylor Swift has ventured into diverse genres throughout her career, including pop, country, folk, rock, and alternative music.

Taylor Swift self-identified as a country musician and achieved prominence as a country pop singer with her first four studio albums, from Taylor Swift to Red.

When Taylor Swift embraced a pop identity, rockist critics regarded her move as an erosion of her country music songwriting authenticity, but others regarded it as necessary for Taylor Swift's artistic evolution and defended her as a pioneer of poptimism.

Jody Rosen commented that by originating her career in Nashville, Taylor Swift made a "bait-and-switch maneuver, planting roots in loamy country soil, then pivoting to pop".

Taylor Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range and a generally soft and breathy timbre that Rolling Stone deemed versatile.

On Red and 1989, Taylor Swift's vocals are electronically processed to accompany the pop production.

Taylor Swift credited her mother with igniting confidence and early songwriting interests by helping her prepare for class presentations.

Taylor Swift enjoyed Disney film soundtracks and would make up lyrics once she had run out of words singing them.

Taylor Swift listed Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, and Kris Kristofferson as career role models, citing their both evolving and consistent songwriting outputs.

Taylor Swift's literary influences include the authors William Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne, F Scott Fitzgerald, and the poets William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson; the last of whom was a distant cousin of Swift.

Taylor Swift delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and post-romance positivity on 1989.

Neil McCormick, the chief music critic of The Daily Telegraph, opined that Taylor Swift is a "significant vehicle for expressing the inner lives and day-to-day concerns of women of her generation [and younger]".

On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Taylor Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives.

Taylor Swift imposed emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry.

Taylor Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success.

Fans noticed that the fifth track of every Taylor Swift album was the most emotionally vulnerable of the album.

Taylor Swift has published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".

Critic Kitty Empire opined in 2024 that Taylor Swift is "a profoundly old-fashioned artist", whose songs "tell a story, in succinct, emotive ways that often scan meticulously" unlike most pop music of the time; Empire attributed it to Taylor Swift's country beginnings.

Taylor Swift's bridges are often noted as one of the best aspects of her songs, earning her the title "Queen of Bridges" from Time.

Taylor Swift often accompanies herself with musical instruments such as electric guitar; acoustic guitar; piano; and sometimes twelve-string guitar, six-string banjo, or ukulele.

Chris Willman of Variety called Taylor Swift "pop's most approachable superstar", and the 21st century's most popular performer.

Taylor Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music-making process.

Taylor Swift has collaborated with different directors to produce her music videos, and over time, she has become more involved with writing and directing.

Taylor Swift developed the concept and treatment for "Mean" in 2011 and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White the year before.

Taylor Swift worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015.

Taylor Swift produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016.

Taylor Swift has cited Chloe Zhao, Greta Gerwig, Nora Ephron, Guillermo del Toro, John Cassavetes, and Noah Baumbach as filmmaking influences.

Taylor Swift's discography is a "critically hailed songbook", as per Time Sam Lansky.

Taylor Swift has won 14 Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 49 Billboard Music Awards, 118 Guinness World Records, 30 MTV Video Music Awards, 12 Country Music Association Awards, eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards.

At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Taylor Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient.

Taylor Swift has the most number-one albums in the UK and Ireland for a female artist this century, earned the highest income for an artist on Chinese digital music platforms, and is the first artist to occupy the entire top five of the Australian albums chart and the top ten of the country's singles chart.

Taylor Swift is the most-streamed act on Spotify, and the most-streamed female artist on Apple Music.

Taylor Swift is the first and only artist to occupy the top nine spots on the Global 200.

Taylor Swift has the most entries, top-ten songs, and number-ones among solo acts on the Global 200 Excl.

Taylor Swift is the first woman to simultaneously chart five albums in the top 10 and eleven albums on the entire Billboard 200; and the first act to occupy the top four spots and chart seven albums in the top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart.

Taylor Swift is the third highest-certified female digital singles artist in the US, with 137.5 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America, and the first woman to have both an album and a song certified Diamond.

Taylor Swift is the only artist in Luminate history to have seven albums sell over a million copies in a week.

Taylor Swift received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from New York University and served as its commencement speaker on May 18,2022.

Taylor Swift has been credited with making a profound impact on the music industry, popular culture, and the economy.

Rosen added that Taylor Swift "falls between genres, eras, demographics, paradigms, trends", leaving her contemporaries "vying for second place".

Taylor Swift has been a victim of numerous house break-ins and stalkers, some of whom were armed.

In 2023, a spokesperson for Taylor Swift stated that she had purchased more than double the required carbon credits to offset all tour travel and personal flights.

In December 2023, Taylor Swift's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to American programmer Jack Sweeney over tracking her private jet, alleging stalking and safety risks; media outlets have reported that the information posted by Sweeney is a synthesis of publicly available data.

In February 2024, it was reported that Taylor Swift had sold one of her two private jets.

Taylor Swift helped shape the modern country music scene, having extended her success beyond the Anglosphere, pioneered the use of the internet as a marketing tool, and introduced the genre to a younger generation.

Lyrically, in being personal and vulnerable in her songs, music journalist Nick Catucci opined Taylor Swift helped make space for later singers like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same.

Taylor Swift has been credited with legitimizing and popularizing the concept of album "eras".

Taylor Swift is a subject of academic study and scholarly media research.

Taylor Swift has influenced numerous music artists, and her albums have inspired a generation of singer-songwriters.

Taylor Swift earned the title Woman of the Decade from Billboard, Artist of the Decade at the American Music Awards, and Global Icon at the Brit Awards for her impact.

Taylor Swift is known for her traditional album rollouts, consisting of a variety of promotional activities that Rolling Stone termed as an inescapable "multimedia bonanza".

Taylor Swift maintains an active presence on social media and a close relationship with fans, to which many journalists attribute her success.

Taylor Swift was a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras, and became the global ambassador for New York City in 2014 and Record Store Day in 2022.

Taylor Swift performed during WorldPride NYC 2019 at the Stonewall Inn, a gay rights monument, and has donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.

In 2020, Taylor Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within one day of her post, and endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 US presidential election.

Taylor Swift became a billionaire in October 2023, becoming the world's first musician to achieve the status "solely based on her songs and performances".

Especially early in her career, Taylor Swift donated to various relief funds following natural disasters.

In 2011, Taylor Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the US, raising more than $750,000.

Taylor Swift donated to food banks after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston in 2017.

Taylor Swift has donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Taylor Swift has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.

Taylor Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" on the One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

In 2012, Taylor Swift partnered with Chegg for Good to donate $10,000 to the music departments of six US colleges.

Taylor Swift has donated items to several charities for auction, including the UNICEF Tap Project and MusiCares.

Taylor Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.

Taylor Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation.

In December 2024, a week before Christmas, Taylor Swift donated $250,000 to Operation Breakthrough.