Taylor Swift opens up about being “slut-shamed” in her early 20s: “That was a bit hard”
Walt Disney Television/Paula LoboTaylor Swift has a lot to say when it comes to sexism and double standards for women in the music industry. She addressed it on the song “The Man” on her latest album Lover, and now she’s unpacking it in a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1.
She reflects on the unfair scrutiny she was put under in her early 20s by people who criticized her dating life, and who assumed her songwriting was “like a trick, rather than a skill and a craft.”
“In a way, it’s figuring out how to completely minimize that skill by taking something that everyone in their darkest, darkest moments loves to do, which is just to slut-shame, you know?” she says. “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.’”
Taylor adds that she was meant to feel like she was “doing something wrong” by “wanting love, wanting money, wanting success.” But now she’s able to give advice to other young female artists who may be in a similar position.
“Anybody who puts anything out into the world, if it has a bit of success, now that comes with scrutiny,” she says. “And that’s something that I tell a lot of new artists and a lot of people who I ended up talking to, who are like, ‘Hey, so you’ve been through a lot of things. I’m freaking out, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, what do I do?’”
“And I’m like, ‘Do not let anything stop you from making art. Just make things.’”
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