Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter known for her autobiographical songwriting and artistic versatility. Swift holds the record for seven albums with over one million first-week sales in the U.S. She is the richest female musician and one of the 21st century's most prominent entertainers.
Background of Swift[]
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. She is named after the singer-songwriter James Taylor. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift's younger brother, Austin, is an actor. The siblings are of Scottish, English, and German descent, with distant Italian and Irish ancestry. Their maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay (née Moehlenkamp), was an opera singer, whose singing in church became one of Swift's earliest memories of music that shaped her career.
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. She 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. When her family moved to Wyomissing, she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. As a child, she performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions and traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Her early love for country music was influenced by Shania Twain, Patsy Cline, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks, and she spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, she became determined to pursue a country music career in Nashville, Tennessee.
Background of friendship with Lorde[]
After her rise to fame, Lorde drew media attention for a comment about Swift, stating: “Taylor Swift is so flawless, and so unattainable, and I don’t think it’s breeding anything good in young girls. ‘I’m never going to be like Taylor Swift,’ ‘why can’t I be as pretty as Lorde?’ That’s f**ing bullshit.”* Despite the remark, the two later became close friends and were frequently seen together by the media—at the beach, shopping, and walking around New York. On Lorde’s 20th birthday, Swift hosted a large party with members of her so-called “squad.” During the 1989 World Tour, Lorde joined Swift on stage in Washington, D.C., to perform “Royals”.
In August 2017, a rumor spread on Instagram claiming Swift had co-written Lorde’s “Supercut” and an unreleased track titled “Never Again”. Lorde denied the claim, clarifying that she had never written a song by that name. Around the same time, speculation circulated that the pair had recorded a duet for Swift’s sixth studio album, Reputation, after Lorde was photographed leaving Swift’s apartment carrying a laptop. However, when the album was released later in 2017, no such collaboration appeared.