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Taylor Swift
Photo: iHeartRadioCA, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons28

Taylor Swift

American singer-songwriter (born 1989)

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. An influential figure in popular culture, Swift is known for her autobiographical songwriting and artistic reinventions.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Taylor Swift (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Dec 13, 1989.1

About

She is the highest-grossing live music artist, the wealthiest female musician, and one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Swift signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 and debuted as a country singer with the albums Taylor Swift (2006) and Fearless (2008). The singles "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Love Story", and "You Belong with Me" found crossover success on country and pop radio formats. Her songs began incorporating stronger rock elements with Speak Now (2010) and electronic styles with Red (2012). She subsequently recalibrated her artistic identity from country to pop with the synth-pop album 1989 (2014), while ensuing media scrutiny inspired the trap-imbued Reputation (2017). Through the 2010s, Swift accumulated the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Bad Blood", and "Look What You Made Me Do".

Shifting to Republic Records in 2018, Swift released the eclectic pop album Lover (2019) and re-recorded four of her first six albums due to a dispute with Big Machine. She explored indie folk on the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, followed by mellower pop subgenres on Midnights (2022) and The Tortured Poets Department (2024), as well as soft rock on The Life of a Showgirl (2025). The singles "Cardigan", "Willow", "All Too Well (Taylor's Version)", "Anti-Hero", "Cruel Summer", "Is It Over Now?", "Fortnight", "The Fate of Ophelia", "Opalite", "I Knew It, I Knew You", and "Patient Zero" topped the Hot 100. Her Eras Tour (2023–2024) and its associated film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023), are the highest-grossing concert tour and concert film of all time.

Swift is the only artist to have been named the IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year six times. A record eight of her albums have each sold over a million copies first-week in the US. Publications such as Rolling Stone and Billboard have ranked Swift among the greatest artists of all time. She is the first individual from the arts to be named Time Person of the Year (2023) and the youngest female inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2026). Her accolades include 14 Grammy Awards—including a record four Album of the Year wins—and a Primetime Emmy Award. Swift is the most-awarded artist of the American Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards. A subject of extensive media coverage, she has a global fanbase known as Swifties.

From Wikipedia’s article on Taylor Swift, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Early life and education

  • Date not recordedWyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School3
  • Date not recordedHendersonville High School3

Early life

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. She is named after the singer-songwriter James Taylor; her parents chose a unisex name, hoping it would help her succeed in business. 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 who manages her film projects. Taylor and Austin are of Scottish, English, and German descent, with distant Irish and Italian ancestry; they are paternal great-great-grandchildren of Charles Carmine Antonio Baldi, a prominent Philadelphia businessman. Their maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay (née Moehlenkamp), was an opera singer whose singing in church became one of Swift's earliest memories of music.

During childhood, Swift spent her holiday seasons on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, and summers at her family's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, where she occasionally performed acoustic songs at a local coffee shop. Raised Christian, she attended preschool and kindergarten at a Montessori school run by the Bernardine Sisters of St. Francis before transferring to the Wyndcroft School in Pottstown. When her family moved to Wyomissing, she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At age nine, she aspired to a career in musical theater, performing at local festivals and in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions, and traveling regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, she changed her goal and became determined to pursue a country music career in Nashville, Tennessee.

At the age of 11, Swift traveled to Nashville with her mother to visit record labels and submit demo tapes of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected by all the labels, which led her to focus on songwriting. She started learning the guitar at the age of 12 with the help of a computer repairman and local musician who assisted Swift in writing an original song. In 2003, she and her parents started working with the talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and was given an artist development deal from RCA Records at 13. To help Swift break into the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended Hendersonville High School for two years before transferring to Aaron Academy, which offered homeschooling.

From Wikipedia’s article on Taylor Swift (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: lyricist, singer-songwriter, composer, singer, musician.5

2004–2008: Career beginnings and Taylor Swift

Swift signed with Sony/ATV Tree Music Publishing in 2004; at 14, she became the youngest person in that publishing company's history. In Nashville, she worked with experienced Music Row songwriters, including Liz Rose. Rose and Swift would write songs every Tuesday afternoon after school. After one year on the development deal, she left RCA Records, which was planning to keep her in development until she turned 18. Swift made this decision because she wanted to release the songs immediately to ensure that they still resonated with her teenage experiences.

Swift organized a showcase concert at the Bluebird Cafe on November 3, 2004; among the attendees was Scott Borchetta, a music executive who was planning to establish an independent record label called Big Machine Records. She signed a recording contract with Big Machine two weeks after the concert, on the condition that her albums would be self-written; her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company. The contract was finalized by July 2005, when Swift ended her working relationship with Dymtrow. She spent four months near the end of 2005 recording her debut album, Taylor Swift, with the producer Nathan Chapman.

Swift's debut single, "Tim McGraw", was released in June 2006. She and her mother spent mid-2006 sending promotional copies of the song to country radio stations across the US. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. On the US Billboard 200 chart, the album peaked at number five and spent 157 weeks on the chart—the longest chart run by an album in the 2000s. With Taylor Swift, she became the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a platinum-certified debut album. Swift promoted the album with a six-month radio tour and by opening for other country artists, including Rascal Flatts in 2006, and George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in 2007. She opened for Rascal Flatts again in 2008, when she dated the singer Joe Jonas.

Taylor Swift was supported by four more singles in 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn", and "Should've Said No". "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" reached number one on the Hot Country Songs chart; with the former single, Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one country single. "Teardrops on My Guitar" was Swift's breakthrough single on mainstream radio and charts, reaching the top 10 of the Pop Songs, Adult Pop Songs, and Adult Contemporary charts. Her next releases were the Christmas extended play (EP) The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007, and the Walmart-exclusive EP Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. Swift became the youngest person to be awarded with the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007.

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2008–2010: Fearless

Swift's second album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008, in North America, and in March 2009 in other markets. Fearless spent eleven weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming her first chart topping album and the longest-running number-one female country album; it was the best-selling album of 2009 in the US. The album's lead single, "Love Story", became the first country song to top the Pop Songs chart, and its third single, "You Belong with Me", was the first country song to top Billboard's all-genre Radio Songs chart; both reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked atop the Hot Country Songs chart. Three other singles—"White Horse", "Fifteen", "Fearless"—all reached the top 10 of Hot Country Songs. In 2009, Swift opened for Keith Urban's tour and embarked on her first headlining concert tour, the Fearless Tour (2009–2010).

Fearless became the most-awarded country album of all time. It won the three highest awards for a country album: Album of the Year by both the Country Music Association Awards and Academy of Country Music Awards in 2009, and Best Country Album by the Grammy Awards in 2010. At the Grammy Awards, Fearless also won Album of the Year, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Also in 2009, Swift was named Artist of the Year by both the American Music Awards and Billboard, and Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association Awards, becoming the youngest person to receive the honor. "You Belong with Me" won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by the rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy and widespread media coverage.

Swift featured in 2009 on "Half of My Heart" by John Mayer, with whom she was romantically linked later that year. She wrote "Best Days of Your Life" for Kellie Pickler, co-wrote and featured on Boys Like Girls' "Two Is Better Than One, and wrote "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and wrote and recorded "Crazier" for the soundtrack of Hannah Montana: The Movie, in which she also had a cameo appearance. She made her acting debut in the 2010 rom-com Valentine's Day and wrote "Today Was a Fairytale" for its soundtrack. "Today Was a Fairytale" reached number one on the Canadian Hot 100. While shooting Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift dated co-star Taylor Lautner. She made her television debut as a rebellious teenager in a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode and hosted and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write their own opening monologue.

2010–2014: Speak Now and Red

Swift wrote her third album, Speak Now, entirely by herself. Released on October 25, 2010, it debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with over one million first-week copies sold—the highest single-week tally for a female country artist. Five of its singles—"Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours"—charted in the top three of Hot Country Songs; "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" reached number one. "Mine" peaked at number three and was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Mean" became its best-selling track. Swift supported the album with the Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012) and its accompanying live album, Speak Now World Tour – Live (2011).

In 2011, Swift was honored as Woman of the Year by Billboard, Entertainer of the Year by both the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards, and Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards. She again won Entertainer of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in 2012. At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, "Mean" won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. After the release of Speak Now, Swift briefly dated the actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

On October 22, 2012, Swift released her fourth album, Red, which she produced with Chapman and several new collaborators, including Max Martin, Shellback, Dan Wilson, Jeff Bhasker, Dann Huff, and Butch Walker. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 1.21 million sales, becoming the fastest-selling country album in US history. Red was Swift's first number-one album in the UK. During the promotion of Red, Swift was romantically involved with the political heir Conor Kennedy, and subsequently the singer Harry Styles.

The two most successful singles from Red, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble", peaked at numbers one and two on the Billboard Hot 100. Both songs also reached the top five on the UK singles chart, and the former was Swift's first chart topper in the US. The singles "Begin Again" and "Red" peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, while "Everything Has Changed" and "22" reached the top 10 on the UK singles chart. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and became the highest-grossing country tour with revenue of $150.2 million upon completion. Swift was named Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards in 2013.

Swift wrote and recorded two songs for the soundtrack album to the 2012 dystopian film The Hunger Games: "Eyes Open" and "Safe & Sound". The latter, co-written with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media in 2013. She wrote and recorded "Sweeter than Fiction" for the soundtrack to the 2013 biographical film One Chance, and featured as a guest vocalist on B.o.B's 2012 single "Both of Us" and Tim McGraw's 2013 single "Highway Don't Care". Her acting roles included a voice acting role in the 2012 animated film The Lorax and a supporting role in the 2014 dystopian film The Giver.

2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation

Swift relocated from Nashville to New York City in March 2014 and transformed her image from country to pop with her fifth album, 1989. She produced 1989 with Martin, Shellback, Chapman, and new collaborators Jack Antonoff, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. Released on October 27, 2014, the album spent eleven weeks at number one and one year in the top 10 of the Billboard 200. It has sold 14 million copies worldwide, becoming Swift's best-selling album. Three of 1989's singles—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood"—reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100; the first two made Swift the first woman to replace herself at the top spot. Two other singles—"Style" and "Wildest Dreams"—peaked at numbers six and five, making 1989 the first album by Swift to have five consecutive top 10 singles on the Hot 100.

Swift supported 1989 with the 1989 World Tour, the highest-grossing tour of 2015 with $250 million in revenue. She was named Billboard's Woman of the Year and received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence at the American Music Awards in 2014, and "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2015. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 made Swift the first woman to win Album of the Year twice and also won Best Pop Vocal Album, while "Bad Blood" won Best Music Video. The most-awarded pop album of all time, 1989 was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2026.

During the promotion of 1989, Swift publicly opposed free music streaming services and their compensation of artists. She published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in July 2014 to stress the importance of albums as a creative medium for artists, and, in November, removed her discography from ad-supported, free streaming platforms such as Spotify. Big Machine kept her music only on paid, subscription-required platforms. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during its free three-month trial period and threatened to withdraw her music from the platform, prompting Apple Inc. to announce that it would pay artists during the free trial period. Big Machine returned Swift's catalog to Spotify and other free streaming platforms in June 2017.

Swift dated the DJ Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. They co-wrote "This Is What You Came For", an EDM single by Harris featuring Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. Swift also wrote "Better Man", recorded by Little Big Town in 2016, which won the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year. She wrote and recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Zayn Malik for the soundtrack to the 2017 film Fifty Shades Darker; it peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest for a Fifty Shades single.

In April 2016, Kanye West released the single "Famous", in which he references Swift in the line, "I made that bitch famous." Swift criticized West and said she never consented to the lyric, but West claimed that he had received her approval, and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, released video clips of Swift and West discussing the song amicably over the phone. Although the clips were proven to be purposefully edited, the controversy made Swift a subject of an online "cancel" movement, in which her critics denounced her as a fake and calculating "snake". In late 2016, after briefly dating the actor Tom Hiddleston, Swift began a six-year relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn and went on hiatus.

In August 2017, Swift countersued and won a case against David Mueller, a former radio jockey, who sued her for damages from loss of employment. Four years earlier, she informed Mueller's employer that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. Public controversies influenced Swift's sixth album, Reputation, which explores themes of fame and finding love amidst the tumultuous affairs. Released on November 10, 2017, Reputation debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 1.21 million US sales and recorded first-week worldwide sales of two million copies.

Reputation's lead single, "Look What You Made Me Do", topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the highest sales and streaming week of 2017, and was Swift's first UK number-one single. The singles "...Ready for It?", "End Game", and "Delicate" were released to pop radio and all peaked in the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. In 2018, Swift featured on Sugarland's "Babe" and embarked on the Reputation Stadium Tour, which grossed $345.7 million worldwide.

2018–2021: Lover, Folklore, and Evermore

In November 2018, Swift signed a record deal with Universal Music Group, which promoted her albums under Republic Records' imprint. The contract included a provision allowing Swift to maintain ownership of her master recordings. In addition, if Universal sold any part of its stake in Spotify, it agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds to its artists.

Swift's first album with Republic Records and seventh overall, Lover, was released on August 23, 2019. She produced the album with Antonoff, Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover peaked atop the charts of such countries as Australia, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the US, and was the global best-selling album by a solo artist of 2019. Three of its singles—"Me!", "You Need to Calm Down", and "Lover"—were released in 2019 and peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. "The Man" was released in 2020 and charted highly, and "Cruel Summer" became a resurgent success in 2023, reaching number one. Swift promoted Lover with the one-off City of Lover concert, its accompanying television special, and the live album Lover (Live from Paris), which set the record for the largest vinyl sales week by a live album in the US.

In 2019, Swift was named Artist of the Decade by the American Music Awards and Woman of the Decade by Billboard, and became the first female artist to win the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year for a self-directed video, with "You Need to Calm Down". During the promotion of Lover, Swift became embroiled in a public dispute with the talent manager Scooter Braun after he purchased Big Machine Records, including the masters of her albums under the label. Swift said that Big Machine would allow her to acquire the masters only if she exchanged one new album for each older one under a new contract, which she declined. In November 2020, Swift began re-recording her back catalog to control the licensing of her songs for commercial use.

In February 2020, Swift signed a global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group after her 16-year contract with Sony/ATV expired. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift collaborated with Antonoff and Aaron Dessner on two "sister albums" surprise-released in 2020: Folklore on July 24, and Evermore on December 11. Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced several songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. Both albums incorporate atmospheric indie folk and indie rock sounds with orchestrations; each had three singles sent to US pop, country, and adult alternative radio—"Cardigan", "Betty", and "Exile" from Folklore, and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime", and "Coney Island" from Evermore. Folklore and "Cardigan" made Swift the first artist to debut a number-one album and a number-one song in the same week in the US; she achieved the feat again with Evermore and "Willow". Swift promoted Folklore with the documentary concert film Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020); its accompanying live album became the first Record Store Day-exclusive album to reach the top 10 of the Billboard 200.

Swift won Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards in 2020 and Album of the Year for Folklore at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2021, becoming the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year three times. She played Bombalurina in the musical fantasy film Cats (2019), for which she co-wrote and recorded the original song "Beautiful Ghosts". The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicled parts of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and received positive reviews.

2021–2023: Re-recordings and Midnights

Swift released two re-recorded albums in 2021: Fearless (Taylor's Version) on April 9, and Red (Taylor's Version) on November 12. Both peaked atop the Billboard 200; the former was the first re-recorded album to do so. The latter helped Swift become the female musician with the most weeks at number one on the Top Country Albums chart, and its song "All Too Well (Taylor's Version)" became the longest song to top the Billboard Hot 100.

Swift's tenth album, Midnights, was released on October 21, 2022. Midnights was Swift's fifth album to open atop the Billboard 200 chart with US first-week sales of one million. Its tracks, led by the single "Anti-Hero", made her the first artist to occupy the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 the same week. The album peaked atop the charts of at least 14 other countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Sweden. Two other singles, "Lavender Haze" and "Karma", both peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 2023, Swift released two re-recorded albums: Speak Now (Taylor's Version) on July 7, and 1989 (Taylor's Version) on October 27. Both debuted atop the Billboard 200, and the former made Swift the female artist with the most number-one albums on the chart. The single "Is It Over Now?" from 1989 (Taylor's Version) reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Swift the first woman to have three number-one songs from three different albums in a calendar year. Swift featured on Big Red Machine's "Renegade" and "Birch" (2021), Haim's "Gasoline" (2021), Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen" (2022), and the National's "The Alcott" (2023). She wrote and recorded "Carolina" for the soundtrack to the 2022 mystery film Where the Crawdads Sing, and had a supporting role in the 2022 period comedy film Amsterdam. After splitting from Alwyn in April 2023, Swift dated the musician Matty Healy in May–June.

In 2022, Swift won Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards and Video of the Year for All Too Well: The Short Film, her self-directed short film that accompanies "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)", at the MTV Video Music Awards; All Too Well also won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video. The following year, she again won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year with "Anti-Hero", became the first musician to rank at number one on Billboard's year-end top artists list in three different decades (2009, 2015 and 2023), and had five out of the 10 best-selling albums of the year in the US, a record since Luminate began tracking US music sales in 1991. At the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in 2024, Midnights made Swift the first artist to win Album of the Year four times; it also won Best Pop Vocal Album.

2023–present: The Eras Tour, The Tortured Poets Department, and The Life of a Showgirl

In March 2023, Swift embarked on the Eras Tour, which she conceived as a tribute to her entire discography. The tour spanned five continents through December 2024. It exerted a global cultural, economic, and political impact and culminated in an unprecedented height of popularity for Swift, resulting in a phenomenon that the media dubbed "Swiftmania". The Eras Tour became the first tour to gross $1 billion and the highest-grossing tour in history, with $2 billion in revenue. Its 2023 concert film became the highest-grossing of its kind with $250 million, and its 2024 photobook sold nearly one million copies in its fi

From Wikipedia’s article on Taylor Swift (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • BornDec 13, 1989, Reading Hospital6 7
  • CitizenshipUnited States8
  • ResidenceNashville9 10
  • SpouseTravis Kelce married 202611 12

Philanthropy

Swift ranked first on DoSomething's "Gone Good" list in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. She received the Star of Compassion from the Tennessee Disaster Services and the Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" and "inspiring others through action". Especially early in her career, Swift donated to various relief funds following natural disasters. In 2009, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. The same year, she performed at Sydney's Sound Relief concert, which raised money for those impacted by bushfires and flooding. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the US, raising more than $750,000. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, she donated $500,000. In 2009, Swift sang at the BBC's Children in Need concert and raised £13,000 for the cause. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to food banks after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston in 2017. She donated $1 million to Tennessee tornado relief in 2020 and again in 2023, as well as $5 million to relief efforts after Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in 2024.

She has also donated to cancer research. As the recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, she participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She has made donations to her fans several times to help cover their medical or academic expenses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America and supported independent record stores. She performed "Soon You'll Get Better" on the One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

Swift is a supporter of the arts. A benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, she has donated $75,000 to Hendersonville High School to help refurbish its auditorium; $4 million to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville—the largest donation the museum had received from an artist—to establish the Taylor Swift Education Center, an exhibit and classroom space that opened in 2013; and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. In 2012, Swift partnered with Chegg for Good to donate $10,000 to the music departments of six US colleges.

Swift has also provided one-off donations. She has donated items, including signed guitars and concert tickets, to various charities for auction, among them MusiCares, Global's Make Some Noise, and Rare Impact Fund. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has also encouraged youth to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day. A promoter of children's literacy, Swift has donated money and books to schools across the US. In April 2018, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. She also donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation.

Swift donated the equivalent of tens of thousands of meals to food banks at each stop of the Eras Tour; she also employed local businesses throughout the tour and gave $197 million in bonus payments to her entire crew. In February 2024, she donated $100,000 to the family of a woman who died in a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl parade. Swift donated $250,000 to Operation Breakthrough in December 2024; the funds were directed to workforce development, childcare, and early learning programs. In December 2025, she made donations to eight organizations including MusiCares, Operation Breakthrough, Feeding America, and the American Heart Association.

From Wikipedia’s article on Taylor Swift (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Politics

Wealth and endorsements

Through her management company, TAS Rights Management, LLC, Swift has filed over 300 trademark applications in the US and holds more than 400 registrations worldwide, as of August 2025. Her filings include her name "Taylor Swift", her fanbase name "Swifties", album and tour titles, lyrics, slogans, artwork, and her cats' names. In 2026, Swift filed to trademark her voice and appearance against AI-generated reproductions, following unauthorized uses of her likeness in deepfake pornography and presidential election advertisements.

Swift was listed by Forbes as the world's highest-paid musician in 2016 and 2019, the highest-paid female musician of the 2010s, and the highest-paid female musician in 2021, 2022, and 2025. In October 2023, it was reported that Swift had become a billionaire. She was recognized as the first billionaire "primarily based on her songs and performances", with the majority of her sum coming from music royalties and touring. As of July 2026, Forbes estimated her net worth at $2.1 billion, making her the world's richest female musician; the estimate included a $900 million music catalog and a $100 million real estate portfolio that spans Nashville, New York City, Los Angeles (Samuel Goldwyn Estate), and Rhode Island (High Watch).

Swift's use of private jets has drawn scrutiny for its carbon emissions. In 2023, a spokesperson for Swift stated that she had purchased more than double the required carbon credits to offset all tour travel and personal flights. In December 2023, Swift's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to the American programmer Jack Sweeney, who uses publicly available data to track her private jet, alleging stalking and safety risks. In February 2024, it was reported that Swift had sold one of her two private jets.

Swift's album rollouts typically consist of multimedia promotional activities involving corporate tie-ins and product endorsements. Target is a long-standing business partner with Swift, offering exclusive physical albums and merchandise. In 2008–2011, her albums and tours were promoted with self-designed dolls with Jakks Pacific, fragrances with Elizabeth Arden, clothes with L.E.I., and holiday cards with American Greetings. Her partnership deals also included makeup products for CoverGirl and Cyber-shot cameras for Sony Electronics. In 2012–2015, she had tie-ins with Starbucks, Keds, Subway, Diet Coke, Walgreens, Walmart, and Papa John's. Other partnerships included New York City naming her its tourism ambassador in 2014, an exclusive Apple Music streaming deal in 2015, a multi-year AT&T deal in 2016, a United Parcel Service album distribution deal in 2017, and a multi-year Capital One deal and a clothing line with Stella McCartney in 2019. She became the first global ambassador for Record Store Day in 2022.

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Social activism

Swift avoided discussing politics in her early career. She said that she kept herself as educated as possible but did not want to influence others with her political opinions, later attributing her reluctance to the 2003 Dixie Chicks controversy and its impact on country musicians, especially women. Due to her apolitical stance, she was appropriated by the alt-right movement in the US, which sparked controversy. Swift voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 US presidential elections, and for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election; she did not publicly endorse Clinton because she believed that the backlash she was facing at the time could make her endorsement harmful to Clinton's likability.

Since 2018, Swift has been public about her political views and has abandoned her once-apolitical stance. She publicly endorsed two Democratic politicians for the 2018 US midterm elections, which resulted in headlines about how she finally dissociated herself from the alt-right and conservatives. In 2020, she urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within one day of her post. Swift endorsed the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 US presidential election, and later endorsed Harris and Tim Walz for the 2024 election. She has openly criticized President Donald Trump and his policies.

A pro-choice feminist, Swift is a founding signatory of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment and has criticized the US Supreme Court's 2022 decision to end federal abortion rights. A supporter of LGBTQ rights, she has donated to GLAAD and the Tennessee Equality Project, advocated for the Equality Act, and performed during WorldPride NYC 2019 at the Stonewall Inn, a gay rights monument. Swift has spoken up against white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the US. She has donated to March for Our Lives and supported gun control and reform in the US, donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and supported the Black Lives Matter movement, called for the removal of Confederate monuments in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.

Swift's political engagements have been met with mixed reception: they have provoked further public discussion of political issues and empowered Swifties, but critics have questioned whether her political alignments were strategic in her career. While some publications have argued that Swift's stardom had a significant impact on political involvement in the US, others have viewed her influence as sizable but overstated. According to the popular culture scholar Simone Driessen, her political impact extended beyond the US to Australia and Europe.

From Wikipedia’s article on Taylor Swift (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Awards

  • 2024Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Midnights13
  • 2020GLAAD Vanguard Award13
  • 2019American Music Award for Artist of the Year13
  • 2019American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album for Lover13
  • 2019American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist13
  • 2019American Music Award for Video of the Year for You Need to Calm Down13
  • 2019Favorite Adult Contemporary New Artiste13
  • 2019MTV Video Music Award for Best Video with a Social Message for You Need to Calm Down13
  • 2019MTV Video Music Award for Best Visual Effects for ME!13
  • 2019MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year for You Need to Calm Down13
More awards (46)
  • 2018American Music Award for Artist of the Year13
  • 2018American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album for Reputation13
  • 2018American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist13
  • 2018American Music Award for Tour of the Year for Reputation Stadium Tour13
  • 2017MTV Video Music Award for Best Collaboration for I Don't Wanna Live Forever13
  • 2016Grammy Award for Album of the Year for 198913
  • 2016Grammy Award for Best Music Video for Bad Blood13
  • 2016Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for 198913
  • 2015American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album for 198913
  • 2015American Music Award for Single of the Year for Blank Space13
  • 2015BRIT Award for International Female Solo Artist13
  • 2015Favorite Adult Contemporary New Artiste13
  • 2015MTV Video Music Award for Best Collaboration for Bad Blood13
  • 2015MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video for Blank Space13
  • 2015MTV Video Music Award for Best Pop Video for Blank Space13
  • 2015MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year for Bad Blood13
  • 2014Dick Clark Award for Excellence13
  • 2013American Music Award for Artist of the Year13
  • 2013American Music Award for Favorite Country Album for Red13
  • 2013American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist13
  • 2013American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist13
  • 2013Country Music Association Award for International Achievement13 14
  • 2013Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media for Safe & Sound13
  • 2013MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video for I Knew You Were Trouble13
  • 2012American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist13
  • 2012Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance for Mean13
  • 2012Grammy Award for Best Country Song for Mean13
  • 2011American Music Award for Artist of the Year13
  • 2011American Music Award for Favorite Country Album for Speak Now13
  • 2011American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist13
  • 2010American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist13
  • 2010Billboard 21 Under 2113 15
  • 2010Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Fearless13
  • 2010Grammy Award for Best Country Album for Fearless13
  • 2010Grammy Award for Best Country Song for White Horse13
  • 2010Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for White Horse13
  • 2009American Music Award for Artist of the Year13
  • 2009American Music Award for Favorite Country Album for Fearless13
  • 2009American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist13
  • 2009American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist13
  • 2009Country Music Association Award for Female Vocalist of the Year13
  • 2009Country Music Association Award for International Achievement13 14
  • 2009Favorite Adult Contemporary New Artiste13
  • 2009MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video for You Belong with Me13
  • 2008American Music Award for Favorite Country Female Artist13
  • Date not recordedAmerican Music Award for Artist of the Year13

Planes and yachts

A position is the aircraft’s or vessel’s, not the person’s. Being on board isn’t confirmed.

Flight data: adsb.lol (ODbL) & ADSB.fi. Flights, photos and icons: CelebPlanes. Maps: Esri.

Flight and yacht reports

Sources

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