Taylor Swift's year just keeps getting bigger and better, as the artist has just been named TIME's person of the year.
Unofficially, 2023 was the year of girl and all things girl-coded and Swift played a major role in that. From Greta Gerwig's billion-dollar feminist take on "Barbie" and Beyoncé's showcase of Black queer liberation at the Renaissance tour to Swift's billion-dollar economy-reviving Eras tour — all intersected to create “a three-part summer of feminine extravaganza.”
Even Swift herself said that the success of girly things is a sign of changing times. She listed: "Girlhood, feelings, love, breakups, analyzing those feelings, talking about them nonstop, glitter, sequins! We’ve been taught that those things are more frivolous than the things that stereotypically gendered men gravitate toward, right?” But now "if we’re going to look at this in the most cynical way possible, feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.”
She added, “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been."
Here are six revelations about the pop star in her first interview in four years: