Taylor Swift

**Taylor Alison Swift** (born December 13th, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter who this wiki is dedicated to. She started out with making country music, her debut being in 2006 at the age of 16. She later turned to pop and has now brought out ten studio albums.

## Biography

### 1989 - 2002

Taylor was born on December 13, 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania, United States to Andrea and Scott Swift. She's of English, Irish and Scottish descent. Taylor was named after singer James Taylor, her mother chose a gender-neutral name so it would help if Taylor wanted to get a business career. From age 5 to 10, Taylor lived on a Christmas tree farm with her parents and her younger brother Austin Swift, who was born when she was four years old. She attended Alvernia Montessori School. Later, she and her family moved to a house in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.

Taylor sat on a horse before she could even walk at nine months old. Her mother loved horse riding and wanted Taylor to ride too. She had a Shetland pony named Ginger and participated in competitions. However, Taylor developed a love for music and theatre and told her mom she wasn't interested in riding.

In the fifth grade, Taylor won a poetry contest at school with a poet called Monster in My Closet. When Taylor was eleven years old, she performed the national anthem at Philadelphia 76ers basketball game.

Taylor joined the Youth Theatre Academy productions and performed in four productions. She dreamed of performing on Broadway, so she took acting and singing lessons in New York and did auditions. However, the auditions weren't successful and she focused on music instead. As a preteen, Taylor sang at different places such as festivals, fairs and karaoke contests. Taylor once modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch.

At eleven years old, Taylor made demo CDs of her singing karaoke music and convinced her mother to visit record labels in Nashville to ask if she could get a record deal. She wanted to go to Nashville because had seen biographies on Faith Hill and The Chicks who started out there. It didn't work, and she realized she needed to be different and decided to write songs. At the age of 12, a computer mechanic learned Taylor to play guitar and she started writing songs with it. The first song she wrote was called Lucky You.

### 2004 - 2008

When Taylor was thirteen years old, she and her family moved to Hendersonville, Tennessee near Nashville so Taylor could pursue a musical career. She felt like this was the best place to break into the music industry. She also wrote a novel at this age, called *A Girl Named Girl*.

She first got a job at Sony/ATV Tree publishing house as a songwriter. Taylor wrote songs with writers such as Troy Verges and Liz Rose. Taylor and Liz Rose would have writing sessions after school where Taylor wrote about her experiences at school that day. She wanted to release her own music, but the label insisted to record songs written by other people and to wait a few years before releasing music. She wanted to release an album that represented the current part of her life, so she left Sony's RCA label.

Despite not having released anything yet, Taylor was doing well on MySpace. Some of Taylor's music was posted on here to see how well it did before deciding to release it officially. MySpace later helped Taylor with the promotion of her music.

In 2005, Taylor performed at Nashville's Bluebird Café and caught Scott Borchetta's attention. He was about to start his own record label and promised Taylor that she'll have a deal as soon as the label is created.

Taylor started writing songs for her debut album with four co-writers and wanted them produced by Nathan Chapman. Taylor's first single Tim McGraw was released on June 19, 2006. The song spent eight weeks at Billboard's country singles chart. She started promoting her music by doing radio and television interviews and by opening for Rascal Flatts' 2006 tour after firing their previous opening artist for playing too long.

In 2007 and 2008, Taylor released four more singles from her album that all ended up on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, Should've Said No and Our Song even becoming number one. Taylor also released a Christmas EP on October 14, 2007. She became the opening act for multiple artists, such as George Strait, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. She won multiple awards and was nominated as best new artist for the Grammy Awards. In her personal life, she started dating actor and singer Joe Jones.

### 2008 - 2010

On September 12, 2008, Taylor released her single Love Story. It was a success; it ended at number 4 at the Billboard Hot 100 and received multiple awards and nominations. The album Fearless was released on November 11, 2008, that debuted at number one at the Billboard 200. Between 2008 and 2010 she released multiple singles of the album, including You Belong with Me that was number 2 at the Billboard Hot 100.

In 2009, Taylor won many awards for the album and its singles, such as five American Music Awards. She was named Artist of the Year by Billboard and her album became the top-selling album of 2009. At the MTV Music Awards, Taylor won Best Female Video. By winning the award, Taylor beat Beyoncé, which caused Kanye West to interrupt her speech to say that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.

Taylor collaborated with multiple artist around this year: Half of My Heart with John Mayer, Best Days of My Life with Kellie Pickler and Boys Like Girls' Two Is Better Than One. She made an appearance in Hannah Montana: The Movie and wrote two songs' for its soundtrack. Taylor starred in the movie Valentine's Day, where she met her then-boyfriend Taylor Lautner. She also contributed two songs to the soundtrack. Taylor also starred in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and was a host on Saturday Night Live. Near the end of the year, she dated John Mayer.

At the 2010 Grammy Awards, Fearless won the Album of the Year award, making her the youngest winner at the time at twenty years old. She won four Grammys out of her seven nominations that night.

### 2010 - 2012

On October 25, 2010, Taylor released her third album Speak Now, written solely by herself. It was the fastest-reaching digital album by a female artist, reaching a Guinness Book of World record. It also debuted at number one in the Billboard 200. Between October and December, she had an on-again-off-again relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

In 2011, Taylor released a live album of the Speak Now Tour. She also wrote and recorded two songs for the soundtrack of the Hunger Games. For one of the songs, Safe & Sound she collaborated with The Civil Wars. The next year, she also collaborated with B.o.B for the song Both of Us. In her personal life, she dated Conor Kennedy.

### 2012 - 2014

Taylor released her single We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together on August 13, 2012. It became her first number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Its album, Red, was released on October 22, 2012. It debuted at number one in the Billboard 200 charts.

In December 2012, Taylor had a short relationship with singer Harry Styles. In 2013, Taylor won multiple awards such as Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards and Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. She also started her Red Tour.

Taylor wrote Sweeter Than Fiction for the soundtrack of the movie *One Chance*. As for her own acting career, Taylor voiced a character in The Lorax and appeared in the series New Girl and movie The Giver. She collaborated with Tim McGraw and Keith Urban on Highway Don't Care.

### 2014 - 2016

On August 18, 2014, Taylor released her single Shake It Off, which is arguably her biggest single to date. It became number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album, 1989, was released on October 27, 2014. It debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. Three of its singles hit number one on the charts and won multiple awards.

In November 2014, Taylor removed all her music off Spotify as she believed music shouldn't be free because she feels like it doesn't fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of it. She later also removed 1989 from Apple Music for not paying artists during listeners' three month trial, but the next day Apple announced that they'd start paying artists during the trial and Taylor put the album back on.

Taylor went on the 1989 World Tour between May and December 2015. It had 85 shows and took place in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. During this time, Taylor was struggling with an eating disorder.

Taylor became Billboard's Woman of the Year and received many other awards following 1989 and its singles. In her personal life, she started dating DJ Calvin Harris in 2015. She co-wrote This Is What You Came For with him under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. They broke up a year later and Taylor started dating Tom Hiddleston for a short period of time.

During the 2016 Grammy Awards, Taylor won Album of the Year and two other awards out of her seven nominations. During her speech, Taylor mentioned that people are going to try and take credit for your success. This was a reference to Kanye West's new song, in which he said "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that bitch famous". Kanye West claimed that Taylor approved the lyrics and even made a music video which featured a naked wax figure of Taylor. His then-wife Kim Kardashian posted a recording of a phone call on Snapchat, in which Taylor appeared to approve the songs lyrics (in 2020, the full audio was leaked and revealed that Taylor did not approve the lyrics). Taylor responded by saying that she didn't approve of Kanye calling her "that bitch", but it didn't help and Taylor got tons of hate. She got called a snake all over social media and many celebrities reacted. Around this time, Taylor's mother was diagnosed with cancer.

The rest of the year, Taylor decided to take a break, avoided paparazzi and was barely active online. She did give a song, Better Man, to Little Big Town and near the end of the year she collaborated with Zayn for I Don't Wanna Live Forever for the movie Fifty Shades Darker. In her personal life, Taylor started dating British actor Joe Alwyn and hid in London; the media/public didn't find out about their relationship until months later.

### 2017 - 2018

In 2017, Taylor got sued by David Mueller, a former radio host who groped her at a 2013 event. She had told his boss about the assault which caused him to get fired; David accused her of lying and sued her for the damage. Taylor counter-sued him for sexually assaulting her. She sued him for only one dollar and won the case.

In August, Taylor removed all content from her social media. She started uploading videos of a snake and announced her new album reputation and its lead single Look What You Made Me Do a few days later. It became a number one single. The album was released on November 10, 2017 and three other singles were released over 2017 and 2018. Her music was also put back up on Spotify.

In April 2018, Taylor collaborated with Sugarland for the song Babe. She also started the Reputation Tour, which became the highest-grossing U.S. tour by a woman. She also won multiple awards, such as Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards.

Taylor left her label, Big Machine Records, in November 2018. She signed to Republic Records instead, under the condition that she'd own her own albums (unlike her six albums, that are owned by her former label). Later that year, she released a concert film of the Reputation Tour.

### 2019 - 2020

On April 26, Taylor released ME!, a collaboration with Brendon Urie and the lead single of her new album. Later, she released You Need to Calm Down, a song in support of the LGBT+ community. The album Lover was released on August 23, 2019. She released two other singles for the album, Lover and The Man.

Taylor's former six albums were sold by Big Machine Records to Scooter Braun and Taylor spoke out about it in a Tumblr post. She accused Scooter of bullying her, specifically during the 2016 incident where Kim and Kanye leaked a private phone call with Taylor. At first, they didn't allow Taylor to sing any of her old music at a performance at the 2019 AMA's, but this was resolved after Taylor posted about it on social media.

Near the end of the year, Taylor starred in the movie Cats. She also wrote the song Beautiful Ghosts for the soundtrack. In 2020, Taylor came out with a Netflix documentary called Miss Americana. She also released a song for the documentary, called Only The Young.

### 2020 - NOW

On July 24, 2020, Taylor unexpectedly dropped her eighth studio album folklore. She announced it a day earlier, along with the track list. It immediately broke records; it had the most first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify and Taylor was the first artist to debut on number one at both the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 in the same week. Taylor released a folklore concert film in November on Disney+, in which she performed the album tracks and explained them.

In November, Taylor started re-recording her first five albums as soon as she was allowed to, while also recording her ninth album. Her old records where now sold to Shamrock Holdings, who Taylor was willing to work with until she found out that Scooter Braun would still profit of the albums.

On December 11, Taylor released another album, evermore, described as folklore's sister album. This album was also announced a day before its release. She worked with many of the same people as on folklore.

## Discography

*See Discography for Taylor's full discography.*

* Taylor Swift (2006)
* Fearless (2008)
* Speak Now (2010)
* Red (2012)
* 1989 (2014)
* reputation (2017)
* Lover (2019)
* folklore (2020)
* evermore (2020)

## Appearance

Taylor has blonde hair. At first, Taylor kept her hair long and curly. During the Fearless era, she straightened it. During the Red era, she cut her hair shorter and got bangs. Her length is 5'11 / 178 cm. Her style differs in different areas.

## References

1. ↑ Taylor Swift tells Top Billing she chose Music over Horse Riding - YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M0NePP2Hso
2. ↑ Taylor Swift Opens Up About a Future in Acting and Admiration for Emma Stone (tasteofcountry.com)
3. ↑ Ellen Show interview
4. ↑ Taylor Swift, Maren Morris, Dierks Bentley & More: Oral History of Nashville's Bluebird Cafe | Billboard | https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/country/7880979/the-bluebird-cafe-taylor-swift-dierks-bentley-oral-history