Taylor Swift has a ‘straight-up enemy’ -- but won’t say who she is
Taylor Swift doesn’t have the time or energy for love right now.
The “Shake It Off” singer’s love life has given rise to blog fodder and punch lines for years, but the 24-year-old recently revealed that she hasn’t dated anyone since breaking up with One Direction singer Harry Styles more than a year and a half ago.
“Like, have not gone on a date. People are going to feel sorry for me when you write that. But it’s true,” she told Rolling Stone contributing editor Josh Eells.
It’s not that she hasn’t been asked out. Au contraire, she gets asked out often, but “70% of the time” it’s via “random e-mail” -- including messages from other celebs who get her contact info from their publicists and drop her a line.
“I feel like watching my dating life has become a bit of a national pastime. And I’m just not comfortable providing that kind of entertainment anymore,” the Grammy-winning cover girl said. “I don’t like seeing slide shows of guys I’ve apparently dated. I don’t like giving comedians the opportunity to make jokes about me at award shows. I don’t like it when headlines read ‘Careful, Bro, She’ll Write a Song About You,’ because it trivializes my work. And most of all, I don’t like how all these factors add up to build the pressure so high in a new relationship that it gets snuffed out before it even has a chance to start.
“And so, I just don’t date.”
Hookups aren’t an option either, because she thinks they’re “pointless if you’re not in love and I don’t have the energy to be in love right now.”
The “22” singer has changed the narrative from “who’s she dating now” to “who’s her bestie du jour.” Swift has been spotted with the likes of Selena Gomez (she’s trying to get her to move to New York), singer Lorde (she calls her by given name, Ella), supermodel Karlie Kloss (she has her own room in Swift’s NYC penthouse), “Hart of Dixie’s” Jaime King (she spent the Fourth of July with Swift), “Girls” wunderkind Lena Dunham (the two first bonded on Twitter over their mutual affection for each other) and numerous other young Hollywood fixtures.
“I really like my life right now,” Swift said. “I have friends around me all the time.... I love the album I made. I love that I moved to New York. So in terms of being happy, I’ve never been closer to that.” Which is not necessarily the same as being happy.
Meanwhile, the country crossover star is gearing up for the launch of her first entirely pop album, “1989,” which goes on sale in October. It’s got several Styles-inspired tracks, though she wouldn’t say so directly. She and Styles are friends now too, in case you were wondering.
But then there’s the tune “Bad Blood,” which will almost certainly start tongues wagging. The singer-songwriter wanted to get ahead of that by revealing that the song isn’t about a guy at all, but inspired by a competitive, unnamed female artist whom Swift lyrically bashes and now has to avoid.
“For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards 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?’” the singer said. “[Then last year] she did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business.”
Apparently, this so-called straight-up enemy “tried to sabotage an entire arena tour” and hired a bunch of people out from under a “surprisingly non-confrontational” Swift.
But she wasn’t non-confrontational enough to skip writing a song about it, despite all the “girl fight” talk it’ll catalyze.
“Sometimes the lines in a song are lines you wish you could text-message somebody in real life,” she said. “I would just be constantly writing all these zingers –- like, ‘Burn. That would really get her.’”
As for who this unnamed frenemy might be? Speculation has included Carrie Underwood and Katy Perry, but only Swift can say for sure.
Rolling Stone hits newsstands Friday.
There she goes, flipping the narrative again. Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.
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