22 Things You Learn Hanging Out With Taylor Swift
We followed Taylor Swift for days, getting all the details on her pop coming-out party, 1989 — and learned a little about living under the constant eye of the paparazzi to boot. Here’s 22 facts from the co-author of “22” that couldn’t fit into this issue’s cover story, from why Lena Dunham thinks she’s a little bit like a 90-year-old to why it’s impossible to keep a steady romantic relationship.
She has money in her blood.
Swift’s mom, Andrea, was working as a mutual-fund wholesaler in Philadelphia when she met Swift’s dad, Scott, who was a client. “They met in a meeting, and he asked her out,” Swift says. “He had this farm 40 minutes outside of Philly, and he was throwing this big hoedown, and she came, and that’s where they fell in love.” As a girl, Swift wanted to be a stockbroker like her dad; she and her brother also took sailing and horseback riding lessons — “just in case we were put in a time machine and had to live in the 1800s.”
She used to get drunk and cry about Joni Mitchell.
“When I first started drinking — when I was like 21 — I used to cry about Joni Mitchell all the time after a few glasses of wine,” Swift says. “All my friends would know, once I started crying about Joni Mitchell, it was time for me to go to bed.”
She actually does curse from time to time.
Although Swift has cultivated a pretty G-rated image, in private she’s just like anyone else. At one point she’s playing some rough demos of a few new songs on her iPhone when she pulls up one co-written with Ryan Tedder. Swift is playing the piano and hits a wrong note when she blurts out, “Fuck!” Blushing, the real-life Swift immediately attempts to cover the speaker on her phone.
She co-wrote Lena Dunham’s future wedding song.
As a bonus track on her new album, 1989, Swift co-wrote a song with Jack Antonoff of fun., who happens to be her pal Lena Dunham’s boyfriend. Antonoff describes it as having “a very ‘Secret Garden’ Springsteen vibe.” According to Dunham: “Jack and I have a lot of existential and political issues with marriage. But if we ever do get married, there’s no fucking way Taylor is not playing that song.”
She lives in the house Frodo Baggins built.
Earlier this year, Swift moved to Manhattan, where she bought a pair of adjoining Tribeca apartments for a reported $20 million. The building dates back to 1882, when it was built as a warehouse for a sausage dealer — she likes the way it feels like a farmhouse in the city, with lots of wood beams and exposed brick. The apartment was previously owned by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, but Swift says she didn’t have to change very much. (“They have really great taste in paint colors.”) She did, however, find a new use for one walk-in closet: “Now it’s my greeting-card writing room!”
She’s surprisingly proud of being able to do splits.
Hanging on the wall in Swift’s new apartment — near dozens of Polaroids of Swift’s family and friends — is a photo of her doing splits. “I was the kid in elementary school who could never do them,” she explains. “So it was a big goal of mine.” In order to pull it off, she spent four months stretching every single day. “It was really hard and painful,” she says. “No one could understand why it was so important to me.” But in the end, it was all worth it. As she says: “Take that, elementary school insecurities.”
She took her grandma’s style.
Also hanging in Swift’s apartment is a photo of her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, an opera singer in the Fifties who was a dead ringer for Swift. “I’ve taken after her in ways I really didn’t see coming,” Swift says. “We have the same nose. We both like to dress up. And she loved to entertain: At her parties, she would get up and sing for her friends.” Her grandma also took Swift to see her first musical, a children’s production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when she was 10. “I started doing kids’ musicals, because I loved seeing these kids up there singing and acting,” she recalls. “It affected me more than I realized.”
Don’t expect to see her at the club anytime soon.
Swift’s idea of a big Saturday night is watching Titanic at home with her cats. “We’re both a little bit like 90-year-olds,” says Lena Dunham. “If we’re feeling really crazy, I can get her to go to a furniture store.”
Despite the rumors, Swift says she and Selena Gomez never had beef.
Last August, the gossip press reported that Swift and her pal Gomez weren’t on speaking terms because of the latter’s involvement with Justin Bieber. Not true, says Swift. “People think they have my relationships all mapped out. There were all these blogs, like, ‘Are they feuding? Are they fighting?’ Meanwhile Selena and I would be on the phone that night, laughing about it. We let them have that one.”
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