Taylor Swift: American Girl

Meet the nation's biggest celebrity of 2024.

Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift. The media’s talking about her constantly. 

She was at the heart of this year’s Super Bowl, and possibly even the presidential election come November. 

Here’s the life story behind Miss Americana.

Ordinary Girl

Tay Tay was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania. She spent her early years on her family’s Christmas tree farm in nearby Wyomissing. Inspired by her grandma, she pursued a professional career in music. 

By age 10, Taylor was already performing at local contests. She sang the national anthem at a basketball game for the Philadelphia 76ers. The gifted little girl began writing her own songs, and learning guitar. 

Little Taylor traveled often to Nashville, America’s musical capital. There, she co-wrote songs and tried to land a recording contract. The Swift family moved to nearby Hendersonville, hoping to cultivate the young girl’s ambitions. 

Debut Album

After a great performance at The Bluebird Café in Nashville, Swift won herself a contract with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records. She released her first single, “Tim McGraw”, in 2006. It became a Top Ten hit on the Country Charts. 

Her song also appeared on her self-titled debut, in October of that same year. Taylor Swift, as her first album was titled, went on to sell over 5 million copies. 

More smash singles followed. “Our Song” became a Number One country hit. Other songs included “Teardrops on My Guitar,” “Picture to Burn,” and “Should’ve Said No.” 

Music critics fell in love with Swift. She took home the Horizon Award from the Country Music Association. She also won the Academy of Country Music Award for Top New Female Vocalist in 2007. 

Quickly following up on her success, Swift released a Christmas album, which won her some modest hits on the country charts. 

Fearless

Taylor released her sophomore effort, Fearless, in November of 2008. It dominated both the country and pop charts for eleven weeks. By the year’s end, Swift was already a best-selling country artist.

Swift’s second album won her a number of awards. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for her song “Love Story” at the 2009 CMT Music Awards. That year, she also won the MTV Video Music Award’s Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me.” Thus, she became the first country star to win a VMA. 

As Taylor gave her acceptance speech, the sweet girl was interrupted by the brash Kayne West. The rapper insisted that Beyonce deserved the award, not Taylor. Stunned, Swift was unable to deliver her speech, and Ye was removed from the show. But when Beyonce accepted her award for Best Video of the Year later in the show, she gracefully called Swift to the stage to finish her speech. Later on, Kayne apologized to Taylor, including a public apology on the Jay Leno Show. 

But the Kanye West controversy only fueled the public’s desire for Taylor! Suddenly, she became an even hotter commodity. Her concert tickets began selling out in less than two minutes. She made her second-ever appearance on SNL, this time as both a host and musical guest. In 2010, Taylor became the youngest artist to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. 

Speak Now

Emboldened by her success, Taylor Swift dropped her third album: Speak Now. 

Hit songs included “Mean,” “Ours,” and “Sparks Fly.” 

The album was yet another success, debuting at Number One on the Billboard 200. In its first week, Speak Now sold over a million copies. 

Red

Taylor followed up with her fourth album: Red. It included the mega-smash hit “We Are Never Getting Back Together Again.” Once again, Taylor’s new album sold a million copies in its very first week! 

Less than 30 years old, Taylor was named Forbes’ highest-paid youth celebrity in 2012. She outpaced even Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna—with a staggering income of $57 million! 

A charitable woman, the celebrity donated $4 million to the Taylor Swift Education Center at Nashville’s Music Hall of Fame. Exhibitions of music history were set up to inspire children. 

By 2013, Taylor Swift was one of America’s hottest stars. She won the American Music Awards for the third consecutive year. 

1989

Swift continued breaking away from her country roots with 1989, which was released in October of 2014. 

“Shake It Off” became one of the year’s biggest pop songs, absolutely destroying the charts! 

She immediately followed it up with another chart-topping single, “Blank Space.” 

Even in the Digital Era of Music, Taylor’s musical juggernaut managed a jaw-dropping 1.2 million copies sold! And that was just in the first week. Now, Taylor became the first artist to break the million mark of opening sales for three albums in a row!

Taylor continued to experiment with her persona, releasing her song “Bad Blood.” The song was done with Kendrick Lamar, and debuted at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards. For this tune, Swift transformed herself into a noir “femme fatale” character named Catastrophe. Other celebrities, such as Karlie Kloss, Cindy Crawford, and Lena Dunham were also featured for the music video. 

Swift’s inspiration came from her feud with Katy Perry, who allegedly tried to date some of Taylor’s backup dancers! “For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not,” Taylor admitted to Rolling Stone in 2014. “She would come up to me at the award shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’” 

But for Taylor, Katy’s biggest offense had nothing to do with men at all: it was a business thing. Perry tried to sabotage one of Taylor’s arena tours, by hiring away Swift’s own personnel. A non-confrontational person, Taylor didn’t enjoy having to awkwardly avoid Katy at every turn. Thankfully, in May of 2018, Katy Perry offered a literal olive branch to Taylor, ending their conflict. 

In February of 2016, Swift opened up with another smash hit from her 1989 album. She performed “Out of the Woods” for the first time at the Grammys. Once again, Tay Tay swept up the awards. 1989 made her the first-ever woman to win Album of the Year twice. 

Reputation

After 1989’s smash success, Taylor Swift stepped out of the limelight. But she resurfaced in August of 2017, when she testified in a trial against David Mueller, a former DJ she had accused of groping her back in 2013. Mueller had bitterly denied the accusations, even countersuing against Taylor, her mother, a radio station employee in 2015. But this time, in 2017, a jury ruled in Taylor Swift’s favor. 

On Twitter, Taylor attacked Kim Kardashian, who had called her a “snake” after she denied giving Kayne the right to use her name in his song “Famous.” 

On August 24, 2017, Taylor dropped her song “Look What You Made Me Do.” In the music video, she played a diverse cast of characters. Within the very first day, the YouTube video got over 19 million views! 

Days before Reputation’s scheduled release on November 10, the track list was leaked on social media. Taylor responded by posting the full thing herself, including named collaborations with Ed Sheeran and the rapper Future. This song was called “End Game,” and the two artists appeared in Taylor’s music video in January of 2018. 

In America alone, Reputation sold 1.05 million copies in just four days! With such impressive opening sales, it became the top-selling album of 2017. Its success continued into 2018, selling 2 million copies. The album dropped seven hit singles! 

Lover

Taylor dropped her song “Me!”, a collaboration with Panic At the Disco in April of 2019. It became the opening hit for her seventh album Lover. Over the next few months, she also dropped “You Need to Calm Down” and the album’s title track. Come November, Swift swept up six awards. The album sold a million copies in the US. 

Taylor made a pained announcement in June of 2019. She explained that her first six albums had been sold off to a company owned by Scooter Braun, a manager who was accused of bullying tactics by other celebrities, such as Bieber and Ariana Grande. “Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,” Taylor complained angrily on Tumblr. “Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” 

Just before the release of the album Lover in August 2019, Swift pledged to re-record and re-release her old music. With her new catalog, Taylor sold it off to Shamrock Holdings for $300 million. 

In December of 2019, Taylor appeared in the live-action adaptation of the Broadway musical Cats. This was along with Jennifer Hudson, James Corden, and Rebel Wilson. She teamed up with Cats creator Andrew Lloyd Webber to write the song “Beautiful Ghosts” for the movie. 

2020s

So far, the 2020s have been very prolific for our girl Taylor Swift. 

A documentary about her, called Miss Americana, was released in January 2020. It was named after her song “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” from the previous year. The premiere took place at the Sundance Film Festival.

In February of 2020, just before the pandemic, Swift released her song “The Man,” where she donned a beard and suit. Her track was an attack against what she saw as the unchecked behavior of rich powerful men. 

Two albums came out in 2020: Folklore and Evermore. 

Taylor dropped her first re-recorded song, “Love Story,” in February of 2021. The entire re-recorded album, Fearless, came out later that year. 

Taylor released Midnights in 2022. 

An upcoming album, called The Tortured Poets Department, is set for April 2024. 

With her ongoing Eras Tour, the cult of Taylor only seems to grow by the day!