In unsurprising news, Taylor Swift has been named TIME’s person of the year. The singer and newly minted billionaire beat out contenders like the Hollywood strikers, Vladimir Putin and Barbie for the title.
TIME’s profile highlights Swift’s economic impact—her Eras Tour sold 2 million tickets in just one day and 4.1 million tickets for 2023 in total, and even caused Ticketmaster to crash, fans to sue and Congress to launch an investigation. Each stop of her tour brought its own “mini economic boom,” driving out of town fans to spend money on transportation, hotels, food and friendship bracelet materials.
For Swift, this economic success has implications beyond her bank account. She calls the frenzy surrounding her tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour and “Barbie” “a three-part summer of feminine extravaganza” that proves that female art is lucrative, hopefully meaning more of it will get made. “It’s extremely heartening,” she said. She also slammed those who put her in competition with Beyoncé, a performer she has been publicly praising all summer. “Clearly it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when those two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion,” she said.
While this moment in her life is the “proudest and happiest” she’s ever felt, Swift acknowledged to TIME that it all started with hardship. She discusses how “getting canceled within an inch of [her] life and sanity” after her feud with Kanye West and having her masters purchased by Scooter Braun were the catalysts for her next-level fame.
