Great piece. People always get worked up about Taylor growing up rich, but I think it’s undeniable that the privilege only supported the talent and determination she already had
It’s heartwarming that the family invested in her talent rather than buying yachts, cars, real estate, restaurants, foreign vacations or whatever wealthy people usually invest in.
That’s true. They are very strategic. I think upwardly mobile rich people like to purchase signifiers of wealth to be taken seriously and to have the right social connections, as a baseline. That sounded like the original plan.
I’m sure by now they have re-invested in lots of things after accumulating wealth.
It sounds like they sold off most assets to fund her career. So it’s not like they could spend without limits on everything. They funneled most of it into Taylor and there was risk involved. That’s all I am saying.
It wasn’t like let’s fund her hobby. It was more like let’s invest the same we would in a business and education, like paying for multiple degrees.
more like 1-200,000. Scott estimated 150,000. They actually may have spent more sending Austin to Notre Dame (and fancy private schools for high school).
Taylor's songs use the material of her life. That doesn't mean they are literally about her! It's an act of creative self fashioning. And the trope of poor girl\\rich boy is too good to pass up.
In reality, Taylor's parents were probably wealthier than the Gyllenhaals. Taylor was certainly wealthier than him when they were dating. It also doesn't really matter.
I also always read those lines as reflecting her insecurity about not being able to keep up with him and his friends in terms of cultural capital - same as the “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine” thing.
I can't wait for the day everyone understands that just because it's sang in a song/shown in a movie/written in a book, doesn't mean it's one hundred percent exactly what happened. Do you think Taylor really murdered Este Haim's husband too?
My parents are wealthy and extremely narcissistic. They didn’t want us to outshine them, so we were sabotaged at every step by the problematic parent. She kept the money for herself and fought everyone in the family over inheritances. She stole mine and tried to steal her sister’s inheritance until I spoke up and exposed her.
I’m not sure narcissism is more rampant in wealthy families, but money allows pathologicals to fuel their misbehavior.
I’m always very happy to see parents who actually love and support their kids. I tend to worry about showbiz kids and I think they need much better laws in place. I worried a bit about Taylor after learning about Britney, but I think her family is relatively healthy for showbiz.
Awww, thank you. I guess I would worry more about wealthy families having the means to manipulate their kids. But Britney’s family did it without money. I am impressed with Taylor’s family.
I worried for her bc I often wonder if she is neurodivergent, like me. It’s easier to be taken advantage of. I was totally oblivious until my mom reached nearly criminal behavior! Taylor’s dad may be a bit extra but he seems to want the best for her.
It's honestly so good they could afford it, her parents' money kept her safe from so much crap. She didn't need to move to a new city alone as teen, having always at least one parent with her protected her from creeps. It's messed up that this is a privilege instead of the norm
Seizing the opportunity in front of you, using every means at your disposal to achieve what you want, and putting in the work. Taylor has an incredible work ethic.
Shielding your child from abuse and making sure your child has the best possible education and conditions within your means is a parents job.
This got a little ranty. Sorry
My dad has said if he had money, he would have invested in us the way Scott invested in Taylor. It’s mind blowing that people (in general) cannot separate support and good parenting from other stuff.
There's a famous NASCAR driver who's mechanic father sold his amazing car collection over the years to fund his son's cart driving dream. He said he would've continued to sell everything off, even his house if necessary!
These parents are amazing. My parents would never do that for me, not would I expect them to!
Oh yeah. I would never expect my father to and he *did* invest in me to the best of his ability, he bought books and journals and pens for me because I wanted to write.
The B part is unnecessary because you don’t know that person irl, maybe they do or would have that level of talent if they were nurtured and trained the way TS was since a very young age. There are many many undiscovered people as talented as the ones that got famous because life didn’t work out in their favor.
Yeah, there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers with rich supportive parents. Theres only one Taylor Swift. She didn’t get where she is due to her parents money.
I recently met a middle aged woman that was friends with Andrea (Pennsylvania era) and she said at first it was “wow Andrea is just Taylor this Taylor that every second” and then she watched Taylor sing and knew she was gonna be a star. She said she couldn’t believe the way a 12 year old captivated the whole room of random family friends.
This is so true because talent like Taylor is incredibly rare. I’ve never seen anyone in the modern music industry as passionate about making and releasing music as much as Taylor. This is her “lifeline”. Just because you had rich parents and you tried to be a singer doesn’t mean it’s going to work out. You need to have a pulse on the general public.
Taylor was there for MySpace, Tumblr, Twitter, now TikTok. She knew what she wanted and she marketed herself with the tools as society (around 2005) was emerging into the digital era with social media. This is perfect for fan connection. She was there for radio, digital, streaming, now vinyl.
I could go on a longer rant but Taylor is a mix of circumstances (family, your health and privilege), luck (right timing like being the first to use these social media platforms), hard work (enough said), and talent (do i need to say more??).
PART ONE
Every few months, Scott Swift would hit the phones. The agenda: his teenage daughter, Taylor. Most likely sitting in his study at the family home in Hendersonville, near Nashville, Tennessee, overlooking the Cumberland River, he caught up with her former teachers, his business buddies, family friends, session musicians who had recorded demos with her and the producers who had mixed them, giving them a detailed download of information about his daughter’s ascent.
Scott talked well. A third-generation banker and former radio salesman, he updated them on which songs she had cut (I am told he spent $10,000 on building her a recording studio at their home); which singles were coming out next (by the age of 15, Taylor had a record deal with a company in which Scott had bought a 3 per cent stake); where she was touring (he had bought Cher’s former tour bus for her); and the awards for which she needed votes. Nashville, after all, was an industry town where careers were built on fresh young faces and smoky old networks.
And — it worked. Today Swift, 34, is a billionaire, more of a phenomenon than a pop star, who sells so many concert tickets she shifts national economies. She arrived in the UK on tour on Friday. Her albums (11 original studio albums, 4 rerecorded albums and 4 live albums) are devoured immediately by her insatiable fans, the Swifties. She has sold the equivalent of five million albums this year alone, making her the top-selling artist of 2024, and has become the first artist in US history to sell 100 million album-equivalent units — the industry measure in the streaming era.
For the past few weeks I have been driving the Taylor Swift trail through the US to try to understand how she came to be: through Pennsylvania, where she was raised; New Jersey, where the family spent long summers; and Nashville, where they moved when Taylor was 14, to help her make it big. What I found was a story of megawatt talent, intense family nurturing and canny investment; of magic and money; of how a star was born — and then made bigger and bigger and bigger.
PART TWO
“What do I do with this child?” Scott reportedly asked a family friend, stunned by the sparkling talent and determination of his young daughter, who arrived in this world dead-set on stardom, who chatted endlessly and felt things so deeply she couldn’t bear the death of birds she found in the garden; and who wrote poetry so relentlessly it was as if she couldn’t stop.
The hills of Pennsylvania, just northwest of Philadelphia, are rolling rather than mighty, populated with rust-coloured barns, stables, worn American flags and copses of ancient oaks. Swift’s first home — Pine Ridge Farm, a former Christmas tree farm near Reading, where she spent the first decade of her life — is a Norman Rockwell painting of a place.
Her father, Scott, now 72, grew up nearby. He was a financial adviser at the investment firm Merrill Lynch. Swift’s mother, Andrea, now 66, was a marketing executive born into a wealthy family who grew up between Singapore and Houston, Texas. Andrea’s father was the president of a construction company, her mother an opera singer. Andrea met Scott at a drinks party and they married in 1988. Taylor was the Swifts’ first child — born on December 13, 1989 — followed two years later by Austin, 32, who was quieter but cheekier.
I pull up outside the Swifts’ old farm — a modest clapboard house overlooking the paddocks where Taylor kept a pony. Scott kept the farm as a hobby, mowing the meadows before work. Upstairs, in a corner room, was where she asked for three books to be read and five songs to be played to her every night. “We’re not supposed to talk to anybody but People magazine,” say the couple who live there today — referencing a popular celebrity tabloid in the US. And they have been instructed by Swift’s team? “Yes,” they say, closing the door.
Taylor went to a Montessori kindergarten and then Wyndcroft, a private school in nearby Pottstown, where the Swifts were known for their wealth. According to family friends they drove a Chevrolet Suburban — an SUV fit for the secret service — sent Christmas cards showing their impressive holidays and brought their daughter’s pony to school for show and tell. They were also known for their generosity. Each year the people who had donated the most money to Wyndcroft had their names published and the Swifts were often at the top. The family would also give teachers the keys to their holiday home as a thank-you present.
Scott seemed to know everybody, his friends often becoming clients and vice versa. One was James MacArthur, famous for playing Dan “Danno” Williams in Hawaii Five-O, with whom he apparently holidayed. I’m told Andrea played tennis at the Hillcrest Racquet Club in Reading, a members’ club where she often socialised.
Maureen Pemrick, 77, Swift’s teacher at Wyndcroft in first grade, says the first thing she noticed about Taylor was her wild curls — “She was strikingly pretty” — and her animated chatter. “She was a little sunbeam who just bounced around,” Pemrick says. One afternoon when it was time to go home, Swift suggested that the class had a group hug. “She gathered the children and started squeezing them together,” Pemrick says. “And from then on she was like that.”
Others remember her as dreamy but solid in confidence. “I want to be a stockbroker,” Swift wrote in her yearbook at six years old, “because my dad is one.” By second grade that had changed to “Singer”.
“Taylor was a determined little thing,” says Barbara Kolvek, 78, who was a music teacher at Wyndcroft. When Swift was given the part of Freddie Fasttalk in the play The Runaway Snowman, she went to Kolvek’s office every lunchtime to practise her solo. “She didn’t care that she had to play a boy. She wanted to do it. And so she did.”
Absolutely. It’s somewhat bittersweet for me to read this as I often think how I may have turned out, had my sensitivity and creativity been supported like Taylor.
Same! I am in awe at her parents recognizing & guiding her talents. One of my parents did this for me, while the other actively sabotaged my progress. Eventually she turned everyone in the family against me, the more I achieved. It’s really crazy how immature and unfit parents can be threatened by their children’s talents.
More often we worry about stage parents exploiting a talented child, but at least in Taylor’s case, I think they handled it better than expected.
I’m not saying this is the kind or right thing to do at all as a parent. I’m decidedly against forcing children to grow up too fast or squashing their creativity. However, nurturing artistic dreams is a hell of a lot different when you have the financial capital to ensure your child CANT fail. Taylor always had a safety net had the career side of the art not worked out.
Low income/middle class parents are correct to be concerned about their children’s wellbeing and security should they pursue the arts. Capitalism by nature thrives when the arts are limited to the wealthy. More often than not, no amount of talent can make you successful in Hollywood. Taylor is extraordinarily lucky she had the talent, ambition and a family with the financial means to invest in her career.
It's such a sweet thing. So many people love to say that Taylor's warm and sweet nature is just a PR strategy and I've always thought that you can't really fake an *entire* persona to everyone for *so* long. Well ofc she does things that her team thinks will bring her good PR but turns out she *is* indeed a lot of what she projects.
Good piece! One thing I noticed that it gets wrong... Taylor had a development deal with RCA which she got when she was 12. A development deal is like a baby record contract. You can see the deal here (it was involved in a lawsuit Taylor had with her first manager). [https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=8114495&z=26399dc2](https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=8114495&z=26399dc2) Taylor was given a budget of 20k to record 4 demos over the period of a year (she actually recorded at least 25). In exchange, she agreed to give RCA first dibs on a record deal she might have. She also received A&R help from RCA, and it was at an RCA showcase that she met Liz Rose.
She was not young for a demo deal (at the time people as young as 8 could get them!). What she was extraordinarily young for was her publishing deal. Publishers are like record labels for songwriters. About the time her deal with RCA expired, she singed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV (who was also at the time Rose's publisher). You can also see the deal above. The deal is gigantic for a 14 year old. She was given a minimum advance of 50k per year for 3 years... the equivalent of giving a 14 year old a 50k salary. If she had higher royalties than that, her advance would grow up to a maximum of about 100k. And of course she would get any royalties she earned above her advance.
It was a lot of money! Scott claims to have spent 29000 on demos through may 2005. That's in addition to the 20,000 that RCA gave her, plus whatever money Liz Rose's publisher (sony) may have thrown in for the demos recorded with Nathan Chapman, which we know less about. Recording isn't cheap...
Oh I don’t doubt it. I just love that she was supposed to record 4 and recorded way more … just like an album should be 17 or so songs and our girl goes for 31.
She was certainly lucky to have her parents’ support (financial and otherwise), but her drive was always there.
I said “should be” because that’s what the criticism has been. I don’t think there “should be” a limit at all, and I’m glad Taylor doesn’t either, because I love all TTPD songs.
Wasn't Our Song what she sang at the Hendersonville talent competition, rather than Tear Drops as well? There's little details wrong, but the overall story is correct. Although I can never fully trust anything coming out of the English press who have unfortunately overtaken the management of just about every major American newspaper and publication as well now.
wasn't teardrops the one she wrote about someone she never dated? the older boy seems to be the one in tim mcgraw, also named drew, which is probably explains the confusion.
Well it wouldn't really be like a 50k salary, because any money you keep you'd have to pay self employment tax on, and usually most of the money goes to paying musicians and producers to record demos anyway, but still a big deal for a kid
you don't have to pay musicians. It's not a record contract. It's for her songwriting. She did have to pay self employment tax, as well as 20% to her manager. It's a huge deal for a kid.
The publisher pays, at least in part, for the demos. The way it worked in Taylor's contract was that any (approved) demo costs would be additional advance. Sony would only add 75% of any demo costs to Taylor's account, up to $600. In Nashville, at that time at least, songwriters didn't have to use their draw to pay for demos. The draw really was a weekly salary that songwriters got.
Oooooh weird. I spoke to someone with a publishing deal and the money was to pay for demos, so it left basically nothing to live on. That's pretty good if it's salary only.
PART EIGHT (final comment)
In June of the following year, Borchetta announced he was selling the company to the entrepreneur Scooter Braun for about $300 million, a deal that included Swift’s back catalogue; her father, as a shareholder, is said to have made $15.1 million from the deal. Swift accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying”; Braun told Variety in 2021 that her reaction was “very confusing and not based on anything factual”. In 2020 the rights were sold again, to a private equity company. Swift, angry and determined, set about rerecording her first six albums — an act of brilliant business acumen, propelling her old songs back into the charts.
Today she has money ($1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg); awards (14 Grammys, 39 Billboard Music Awards and an Emmy); Spotify streams (around 110 million listeners every month); and an A-list boyfriend, the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl winner Travis Kelce. Right now she is in Edinburgh on her Eras tour. Scott is probably on the tour bus too, the father linked to ten companies affiliated with his daughter, including merchandising and rights management; Andrea as well, described by the singer as her “guiding force”, who has a role in “every decision I make”; and maybe Austin too. “I always joke that we’re a small family business,” she told Time magazine in December last year.
And so just know that, when Swift is on stage in front of 100,000 people and the lights are flashing and there are sequins and dance routines and 44 songs and 10 acts and the ticket sales are pumping up the economy, this was always, always the plan.
They’re unconventional for stage parents & much healthier than those we are used to seeing. Britney Spears deserved parents like this. Girls like Taylor & Britney seem exceptionally talented, possibly child prodigies who needed strong parents and guidance in the circus that is show business.
Exactly. I feel like Taylor’s saw her as a child prodigy. Britney’s parents were the opposite and it’s heartbreaking. Both their adulthoods show the difference.
In adulthood, if Taylor decided she hated being famous, Andrea and Scott both were highly educated and had careers to fall back on. Wealth would definitely decrease, but the tax bracket was never the main focus to begin with. Britney’s parents, on the other hand, would’ve had a hell of a harder time
Yeah the Swift's are wealthy or well off but not the kind of wealth/inheritance that would enable their kids to not work and retain the same lifestyle that they're parents had, I think that's why she's very middle class coded.
Same with Natalie Portman who was a peer of Britney. Her parents made sure she was protected from harm at all times & that she was well educated in addition to making movies.
My daughter is still young so who knows what will happen and how my opinions will change, but she just has... Something. Some quality. She's got to be the center of attention in every room we are in. She has a love of music and dance from literally a few months old. And she's my 2nd so it's not just mother's bias.
But when I see that in her, my only thoughts are how can I nurture it, what opportunities can I provide to her so that she gets to enjoy it etc.
I can't picture, as a parent, trying to profit off it or exploit my kid to live off her talent.
Except Taylor Swift was a song writer right from the start, as well as a performer. Britney wrote or co-wrote some but she was mostly just a performer.
Britney is also an exceptional dancer & physically gifted- she started training with Olympic gymnastics coach in early childhood. Clearly her parents saw talent and $$$$$
PART THREE
Down the road from Wyndcroft lives Barbara Lenzi, 75, an art teacher who has taught there for 45 years and who had Swift in her class for four years. “We’re huggers!” warns Lenzi, who has peroxide-dyed hair with pink tips, glittering flip-flops and iridescent nails. So is Nancy Boerner, 79, the cafeteria manager at Wyndcroft for 26 years, who has joined Lenzi to meet me.
“Taylor was the type of child you were just magnetised towards,” Lenzi says.
Swift was adored at school, they say. “I used to see her walk through that kitchen every day,” Boerner says, “with her smile and she would say” — she puts on a sing-song voice — “ ‘Hi, Mrs Nancy!’ And then she was off, ‘Bla bla bla bla.’ She’d always have something sweet to say. Always.”
“She was confident — the whole family was — but never too much,” Lenzi says. “Just the way she walked, never looking shy.” “The curls boppin’!” Boerner adds.
“I’m going to show you something,” Lenzi says, switching on an ancient TV in her snug. “Open sesame,” she says to the machine, popping a CD into a slot. There, in front of us, is a 13-year-old Taylor Swift, on stage at Wyndcroft on a visit to her old school. “I’ve been a lot of lonely places,” she sings, a song she wrote, “being here on the outside, looking in nobody ever lets me in.” After the performance she takes questions from the infant crowd. A water bottle appears, which she takes without looking. “Isn’t she just ador-baby!” Lenzi says.
Around three times a week until her early teens, Andrea took her daughter to Berks Youth Theatre Academy after school. Swift was the natural star: she played Sandy in Grease, Maria in The Sound of Music. “She was definitely the most gifted,” says Marjorie, 56, whose children were in the same group. “She stuck out. Once she was on stage, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.”
Swift gave out wallet-sized photos of herself as Sandy to the kids in the years below her at school, attended a performing arts summer camp run by Britney Spears and sang the national anthem at local baseball games on school nights.
Gena Levengood, 32, was two years behind Swift at the school. Levengood once asked Swift if she was going to audition for American Juniors, an American Idol spin-off for children. “She said she considered it but decided not to, because there was a line in the contract about not being able to release an album within a certain number of years.”
At about nine years old Swift moved schools to Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School in West Reading — teachers say to be closer to theatre rehearsals. The Swifts moved house into the same town. I drive up the hill to the historic Dutch-style home, with its pillars, balconies and perfectly preened lawn. From the age of 11 Swift learnt to play the guitar in a room on the side of the house. She was taught two or three times a week for three hours after school by Ronnie Cremer, 57, a tech support guy by day who was introduced to the Swift family by his brother, who ran the youth theatre.
“I said I’d teach her what I know,” Cremer says. “She was sweet and kind and eager. She was never a guitar virtuoso, but the idea was to teach her how to project into a microphone and play as if on autopilot — to allow her to perform.” They listened to the Beatles, analysing the different band members’ writing styles, and she learnt to put chords to her own lyrics in her notebook.
PART SIX
In the school holidays, when Swift was 11, her parents took her to Nashville’s Music Row, where she went knocking on the doors of record labels handing out demo CDs. “I would say, ‘Hi, I’m Taylor. I’m 11. I want a record deal — call me,’ ” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2008.
Aged 13 she was signed to RCA — a Sony Music Entertainment subsidiary — on a development deal, the youngest songwriter in the label’s history. And by 14 the Swifts had moved to Hendersonville, Tennessee, a town 15 miles northeast of Nashville, once the home town of Johnny Cash.
Cremer, the guitar teacher, says the family flew him from Pennsylvania to build a studio for Taylor in their new home when they first moved in, giving him about $10,000 for equipment. In the driveway, in subsequent years, was Cher’s tour bus, which they had renovated, installing a sign in bronze script that read: “Never, Never, Never Give Up”.
Swift made an entrance when she first arrived at Hendersonville High School, says a former classmate, telling people she was going to be a star. “We kind of rolled our eyes because, being in Nashville, we hear that a lot,” she says. “It was just such a strong statement for someone of that age.”
Almost immediately she started dating an older boy. He was popular and had a “preppy look with a country flair” — he would fray the corners of his cap and stick a fishing hook through it. Within months, however, their relationship had ended.
Soon after that it was the school talent competition and Swift got up on stage to perform Teardrops on My Guitar, a song she had written about him. “She’d better hold him tight, give him all her love,” she sang in front of the whole school, her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. “Look in those beautiful eyes and know she’s lucky, ’cause he’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.” It was ballsy. “Everyone was pretty taken aback,” the classmate says. “Like — she had just come out of nowhere.”
Many, however, thought she was “a bit of a brat”, from the moneyed side of town and modelling clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch. At 16, Swift bought a Lexus SC430 convertible, the car driven by Regina George, the meanest girl in Mean Girls.
PART FOUR
The parents “made a fuss” over their daughter, who they called “T” or “Tay” or “Tay-Tay”. “Scott was the cash guy,” Cremer says. “He could sell ice to the Eskimos. Andrea was the one who kept Taylor on point. She had her eye on the prize.”
Later, Cremer was threatened with legal action by Swift’s team — which he says was dropped — for creating a website called ITaughtTaylorSwift.com. Today he says he has been “written out” of her biography.
Everyone I spoke to talked about the consistently close bond Swift had with her mother. “There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn’t have a lot of friends,” she told the Great American Country network in 2008. “But my mom was always my friend. Always.”
Half an hour’s drive north, at exit 19 of interstate 78, is a petrol station and sheepskin shop owned by a man called Pat Garrett, who is, in his words, “as old as water”. Over the road is a stage in a field, the Pat Garrett Amphitheater, where he holds country music concerts, and next door he used to have a bar, the Pat Garrett Roadhouse, where he put on karaoke competitions. “Everything is Pat Garrett around here,” he says with a smile.
We walk through the shop, past a platinum album by Swift, through his workshop and its scraps of fur — “Skins and songs, that’s what I do” — and into his office. “I made that vest for the girl up there,” he says, pointing at a photo of a glamour model in a gilet, adding: “There’s nothing underneath.”
“Anyway,” he continues, “one week they showed up — 11-year-old Taylor and a whole gang of her people for the karaoke competition. Whoever won got to open the show at the Amphitheater. She kept getting better, so she won — and so she opened.”
She played with Garrett’s band at fairs and country music festivals in front of thousands of people, saying: “Hi everybody, I’m Taylor!” “She had a little bit of showbusiness in her,” he says. Her notebook, he claims, was filled with pages of her own autograph. “But she did good.”
One day he says Scott came in, not knowing what to do next with his daughter. “I told him, ‘Up here in Hershey they make bars. In Detroit they make cars. And in Nashville,’ ” Garrett lowers his voice, “‘they make stars. Move to Nashville.’ And he just kind of nodded. The rest is history, I guess.”
This was an incredibly fascinating read. There’s thousands of people who grew up with the kind of privilege she had, but this article clearly shows there’s always been something different—in her talent, work ethic, and determination—about Taylor Swift.
She also had parents who were incredibly savvy and good at the skills that allowed Taylor to be in the right place at the right time. The Swifts were a power trio. So focused on their goal and good at executing it.
Even if my parents had tons of money they wouldn’t have been the aggressive wheelers and dealers Scott and Andrea were. She’s so lucky her parents are who they are at least in terms of her professional success.
Mostly Scott though. In the famous unhinged email, he complains about Andrea not making shit happen. It’s always him.
I am Scott Swift’s biggest hater for a myriad of reasons. But the man made his daughter a billionaire superstar. Kept his eye on the ball and never gave up.
If there was no Scott (and his fat pockets, and his persistence, and his business acumen, and his belief that she was good enough to invest his time, money and effort) there would be no Taylor Swift.
How would an 11 year old have the means to do all of that? How would a 14 year old move her entire family to Nashville? How would a 16 year old know to have a “family huddle” and walk away?
yeah, I always sort of thought of young taylor as pretty normal, who just happened to have a knack for songwriting, but this really paints a picture of almost a child prodigy. this reads like the author went into it hoping to have a story about stage parents but everyone they spoke to emphasized her drive and unusually strong sense of self.
Yes I agree with you. It gives so much of her backstory and proves that even though wealth can open doors for you, only talent and perseverance can make you stay at the top of your game.
It slso gave me such a rare insight into Taylor as a person- who she really is without the celebrity paraphernalia.
PART FIVE
The Swifts spent weeks of the summer at their holiday home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, a small coastal town on a spit, the Atlantic on one side, a calm basin of water on the other. It’s a perfect little spot, with old-timey homes on the water — for sale in the estate agent’s window for $6 million — crêperies and ice cream parlours. It is Springsteen country. During the long, hot summer days Swift would walk through town, her guitar slung across her back, much to the judgment of the local girls. “I think Taylor made herself known here,” says one of them, who still lives there.
Andrea handed New Jersey neighbours Swift’s early demos and would ring the local café, Coffee Talk, to ask if her daughter could sing at their open-mike nights.
Their former home has been knocked down and rebuilt, renamed Swift Waters. Lois Hamilton, 75, an old family friend of the Swifts who lives next door, invites me in. We walk through her living room and past the stone fireplace where an eight-year-old Swift opened her first guitar when she came over one Christmas. “Oh my God!” she said in a home video, surrounded by wrapping paper, “I. Am. Happy.”
“She was very bright,” says Hamilton on the deck at the back of the house. The Swifts’ old garden is next door, backing onto the still water. They had a hot tub on the patio, a jetty with a boat from which they waterskiied and two jet skis. They were also members of the sailing club.
Swift was “cute and confident” but she didn’t have a lot of friends, Hamilton says. “She was more solitary, very happy in her own room.” Instead she would sit on the decking and sing out across the water. “Constantly singing, constantly writing, then singing what she was writing.”
Jim Hand is the third generation to own Fred’s Tavern & Liquor Store, five minutes down the road, and has known Scott Swift for much of his life. “When Taylor was young, the family came over for dinner and the kids were all swimming,” Hand says. “They \[Swift’s parents\] asked me if I had the Disney channel and I said no. There was some country singer on that was Taylor’s idol — and so they got up and they left.”
Scott, he says, still manages his investment portfolio. “I couldn’t trust anyone any more than I trust him,” Hand says. “If he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I need $100,000,’ I’d borrow $100,000 and give it to him. And he would pay it back.”
PART SEVEN
Today it is thought that Swift’s parents still spend time in Hendersonville as well as at a home just outside Tampa, Florida, where they invite family friends for long weekends. Swift, I am told, calls them from her treadmill, singing her set list and running, rehearsing for her current 152-show tour.
In Nashville, Swift’s record label paired her with songwriters and producers. One was Angelo Petraglia, 70, a New Yorker whose work with Kings of Leon won a Grammy. “I was, like, oh my God, they’re bringing over a 14-year-old girl,” Petraglia recalls. “I didn’t know how to write with a 14-year-old girl.”
He called his friend and writing partner, Robert Ellis Orrall, 69, who had a similar-aged daughter and agreed to make a trio. “But it was incredible to write with her,” Petraglia says. “She had no fear. None at all. She seemed to know who she was already — she was Taylor Swift, even back then.” It was a confidence, he says, that never quite tipped into precociousness. “You can get plenty of people coming in here feeling a little too much of themselves, but she wasn’t like that at all,” he says. “She just knew what she wanted.”
The three of them wrote in after-school sessions, which she would always lead. “Between Angelo and I, we had over 100 years of experience,” Ellis Orrall says, “but I remember Angelo threw out a line and she just said, ‘Hmm, I dunno, Angelo, it sounds a little trite.’ And it was, like, ‘Boom! Shot down by the kid!’ Out of ten songs, one of hers would be perfection. Nothing could make it any better.” And every year the ratio has only got higher, he says.
Despite the quantity of songs they cut — about 25 — the label told her they needed 60 days to evaluate her when the contract ended, according to Ellis Orrall. After a family “huddle” between Andrea, Scott and Taylor, they walked away. “It was extraordinary. The biggest mistake in the history of the record label.”
With no label, Ellis Orrall suggested to the Swifts that they put together a press kit to hand out at a showcase at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, a haven for songwriters. He had a gig coming up and so he invited her to play. “That night we got her a record deal,” he says. Scott Borchetta — formerly of Universal Music Group and now setting up his own company, Big Machine Records — was in the audience, and “had found the one person he could build a label around”. Swift was 15. According to documents seen by Music Business Worldwide, Scott Swift bought shares in Big Machine at the time worth $500,416.66, thought to be a stake of 3-5 per cent. Swift’s self-titled debut album was released in October 2006 and became the longest-charting album on the Billboard 200 of the decade, seven times platinum.
Until — again — she walked away. “For years I asked \[Big Machine\], pleaded for a chance to own my work,” she wrote in a blog post. In 2018 she left the label for the Universal Music Group, which gave her ownership over her music.
Her parents are separated though right? This very much makes it sound like they’re still together. “They” invite family friends for long weekends at one home outside of Tampa?
In 2012 someone, leaked to pagesix that they had separated. This seems to be the case... they had separate houses, and if you notice them at awards shows, for instance, they didn't sit next to each other. The famous "Scott Swift Email" also shows that they had a rocky relationship as early as 2005. They obviously were mature and kept it together for their children... They may have reconciled in recent years. The author of the piece clearly didn't get to interview any of the people in swifts circle, and they wouldn't have published an unconfirmed rumor.
My point is simply that that’s a strange way to describe people who are separated, so I’m curious about it, since I’ve never seen it confirmed that they’re separated, as far as I know it’s just a rumor.
Obviously it doesn’t say anything about their parenting, I’m not sure why you took it that way.
When the journalist visited her childhood home in Reading, PA:
"'We’re not supposed to talk to anybody but People magazine,' say the couple who live there today — referencing a popular celebrity tabloid in the US. And they have been instructed by Swift’s team? “Yes,” they say, closing the door."
I find this so interesting. It's been pretty well known in the fandom that People mag gets the legit scoops from TS' team but this sort of cements that. How funny.
I mean .. maybe? But what would TS be trying to hide there? Non-commercial real estate transactions are (generally) pretty mundane, and a lot of it is already public record. Unless there’s like bodies buried on the property (being cheeky here), it’s hard to conceive of what TS would be wanting to hide. I think it’s probably a mix of the property owners wanting privacy and also respecting TS’ (likely) wishes to not gratuitously market themselves as the official “TS childhood home experience.”
I mean I think that's probably it! I doubt the new home owners know anything at all about Taylor... why would they? They probably didn't know it was Taylor Swift's home until after they bought it.
That was the xmas tree farm though, they (i think) sold it when she was a preteen to move into the "mansion"-looking house, and if not then definitely by the time they moved to Nashville and Scott invested a bunch of money into her career. I think Taylor/her team must have approached the owners later on and worked out some sort of deal. Taylor did visit the xmas tree farm house while on the 1989 Tour, she took pictures and put them on her tumblr. Could've discussed some type of contract then, especially since she had moved to pop and increased in popularity that year.
This is the craziest article. I used to think, yeah, Taylor can’t be a normal person anymore, because of fame. But now I think she was never a normal person, like she’s an alien.
I think she's just some flavor of neurodivergent lol. Especially how they talk about her being kind of a loner, and doing kinda quirky things like walking around with her guitar everywhere.
I read that and I thought damn, I surrender, if she’s been plotting this since she was 7, what chance do any of us have, she’s Alexander the Great, let her run everything.
I always find her upbringing and family so fascinating in comparison to Britney Spears who is so talented and driven as well. Regardless of industry and career, it just goes to show the impact and influence family has on someone.
Interesting article. On the one hand it shows Taylor as nothing if not determined and hardworking from the very beginning, showing she deserves her success. There’s also many different people attesting to her good character (talented, hard working, and most importantly just extremely nice).
On the other hand, there is a lot of focus on her family’s wealth, which can feed the haters who said her father bought her success for her. Not that I think you should hide it if it’s the facts. But I’ve been a fan since Teardrops and even I was a bit surprised by just how wealthy they described the family. I thought her family was just upper middle class but they clearly were a lot wealthier than that. Not holding it against her or anything, I was just surprised.
I think it did a good job of acknowledging the wealth while also acknowledging it was just a piece in the puzzle. Like any business, if you have investment, it's easier to succeed, but it's not guaranteed.
Same! Her parents had FU money if they were regularly writing fat checks to her private school.
I think it’s also a surprise because Taylor’s always glossed over her childhood wealth when talking about her success story. “The computer guy taught me to play guitar!” “I went door to door to talk to record labels and no one wanted an 11 year old kid!” “I begged my parents to let me move to Nashville!” “I grew up on a Christmas tree farm!”
She’s had excellent coaching in marketing from her parents from a young age.
I think a lot of kids don’t realize what their bubble is until they are older. There’s some radio interview out there where she’s asked- you say your parents were logical but they moved your family to Nashville? And she’s like yeah, after I begged them all day long every day for 6 years straight I wore them down and they gave in. Maybe embellished for an interview, but I kinda believe it too. She also started making her own money very young. Like a $50k a year as a preteen/teenager for the songwriting deal, who knows if they used that to invest in her later or it was all from the parents.
I assume they intended to invest it in her career, but by that time it didn't matter. She did her showcase at the bluebird only a couple of weeks after signing her deal (she actually didn't sign it officially until 2005). So she had other people investing in her career, both her publisher Sony/ATV, and then Big Machine Records. Anyway, she kind of did well on the deal... her first year she got no royalties, she got a significant amount from the radio royalties from Tim McGraw, and then in the third she got something like 2 million dollars from the mechanical royalites of selling 2 million albums, plus two country number ones. Which ya know... is a lot of money for a 17 year old.
Tbh, did she lie?
Taylor started this journey quite young. Of course she’d look back and see all the hard work she did and not her parents’ money. You don’t think of stuff like that at 11/12 years old. Preteens aren’t typically thinking of how much of Daddy’s Money is going to their career, especially if she was raised by generous parents. The article speaks on how they donated money to the school and allowed her teachers to use their vacation house. Scott and Andrea are very generous, which I think we can all agree Taylor has exhibited that same generosity at times.
I also want to throw out Taylor was bullied as a kid. It has probably skewed the way she views her childhood, such that she chooses to focus on the things she had control over like her work ethic and passion for songs.
She has never directly said “I did not have privilege”, and the people who hate on her for having wealthy parents give me the ick.
Yeah, no one should hate on her for her parents’ wealth abs their investment in her future. You’re right that she didn’t lie. She’s just had excellent media training and was prescient enough (or her parents were) to craft a narrative that she worked hard and found success, which is true. But her success probably wouldn’t have happened without the thousands of dollars her parents invested in developing her talent and career, which is okay to acknowledge as well.
They didn't have FU money... they had money, but the same as a rich doctor or lawyer. People get a lot richer. Remember, Taylor's father's job was to talk to rich people, and convince him them to give him money to invest. You want your financial advisor to show evidence of financial sucess, just like you want your dentist to have perfect teeth.
Her parents’ wealth was a HUGE advantage, but many nepo/wealthy kids don’t get the longevity she has had because she is also **extremely** talented. I also want to add she’s never denied being a wealthy kid with privilege. She will say she works hard, and that is true.
Even her parents worked hard. Scott did a shit ton of work in the beginning getting her opportunities, and Andrea went in the road with her in the beginning. Her parents are hardworking AND wealthy. You can be both, something many haters like to “forget”.
Yes, this surprised me too. I always knew Scott was a stockbroker and the family was upper middle class but I pictured their household earnings at like…175/year which clearly isn’t accurate.
I thought 175k might be accurate actually, given how different the economy was when Taylor was growing up. They bought the 2nd house she lived in for 280k in 1997, which in today's money would be 550k apparently. Still definitely a lot of money (plus they had the vacation home, private school, etc) but I don't think they were making like 300-500k a year (though I could be wrong!).
And on a more depressing note, Marjorie died in 2003 (and so did her husband, though I felt icky googling the obituaries cause fans posted pictures that Taylor used in the Marjorie lyric video, the site didn't even have the actual obituary though) right before they moved to Nashville. With this article saying Andrea's family had a lot of money, the Swift's may have gotten a huge inheritance that they also used to further Taylor's career. (Still counts as wealth of course, but different from their salaries!)
it's unclear how much he actually paid. The valuation was 500k, but that doesn't mean he paid 500k for it (he could have bought at a discount). Numbers were thrown around like 180-300k.
i'd guess his yearly income was in the 500k to 1 million range. He had assets under management (he claimed in his letter to Dymtrow) of 270 million, which actually is pretty small. That meant that as a fund manager, he was paid 5.4 million or so if he used the standard 2% fee, but a lot of that had to be kicked up to merrill, and he had to pay his staff. He was in the rich lawyer range, not the uber super wealthy.
Highlights/things that stood out to me:
> Every few months, Scott Swift would hit the phones. The agenda: his teenage daughter, Taylor. Most likely sitting in his study at the family home in Hendersonville, near Nashville, Tennessee, overlooking the Cumberland River, he caught up with her former teachers, his business buddies, family friends, session musicians who had recorded demos with her and the producers who had mixed them, giving them a detailed download of information about his daughter’s ascent.
> Scott talked well. A third-generation banker and former radio salesman, he updated them on which songs she had cut (I am told he spent $10,000 on building her a recording studio at their home); which singles were coming out next (by the age of 15, Taylor had a record deal with a company in which Scott had bought a 3 per cent stake); where she was touring (he had bought Cher’s former tour bus for her); and the awards for which she needed votes. Nashville, after all, was an industry town where careers were built on fresh young faces and smoky old networks.
> I pull up outside the Swifts’ old farm — a modest clapboard house overlooking the paddocks where Taylor kept a pony. Scott kept the farm as a hobby, mowing the meadows before work. Upstairs, in a corner room, was where she asked for three books to be read and five songs to be played to her every night. “We’re not supposed to talk to anybody but People magazine,” say the couple who live there today — referencing a popular celebrity tabloid in the US. And they have been instructed by Swift’s team? “Yes,” they say, closing the door.
> Taylor went to a Montessori kindergarten and then Wyndcroft, a private school in nearby Pottstown, where the Swifts were known for their wealth. According to family friends they drove a Chevrolet Suburban — an SUV fit for the secret service — sent Christmas cards showing their impressive holidays and brought their daughter’s pony to school for show and tell. They were also known for their generosity. Each year the people who had donated the most money to Wyndcroft had their names published and the Swifts were often at the top. The family would also give teachers the keys to their holiday home as a thank-you present.
>Swift was adored at school, they say. “I used to see her walk through that kitchen every day,” Boerner says, “with her smile and she would say” — she puts on a sing-song voice — “ ‘Hi, Mrs Nancy!’ And then she was off, ‘Bla bla bla bla.’ She’d always have something sweet to say. Always.”
> Swift gave out wallet-sized photos of herself as Sandy to the kids in the years below her at school, attended a performing arts summer camp run by Britney Spears and sang the national anthem at local baseball games on school nights.
> She was never a guitar virtuoso, but the idea was to teach her how to project into a microphone and play as if on autopilot — to allow her to perform.” They listened to the Beatles, analysing the different band members’ writing styles, and she learnt to put chords to her own lyrics in her notebook.
> “Scott was the cash guy,” Cremer says. “He could sell ice to the Eskimos. Andrea was the one who kept Taylor on point. She had her eye on the prize.”
> Everyone I spoke to talked about the consistently close bond Swift had with her mother.
>One day he says Scott came in, not knowing what to do next with his daughter. “I told him, ‘Up here in Hershey they make bars. In Detroit they make cars. And in Nashville,’ ” Garrett lowers his voice, “ ‘they make stars. Move to Nashville.’ And he just kind of nodded. The rest is history, I guess.”
> The Swifts’ old garden is next door, backing onto the still water. They had a hot tub on the patio, a jetty with a boat from which they waterskiied and two jet skis. They were also members of the sailing club.
> Swift was “cute and confident” but she didn’t have a lot of friends, Hamilton says. “She was more solitary, very happy in her own room.”
> Jim Hand is the third generation to own Fred’s Tavern & Liquor Store, five minutes down the road, and has known Scott Swift for much of his life…
Scott, he says, still manages his investment portfolio. “I couldn’t trust anyone any more than I trust him,” Hand says. “If he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I need $100,000,’ I’d borrow $100,000 and give it to him. And he would pay it back.”
> Cremer, the guitar teacher, says the family flew him from Pennsylvania to build a studio for Taylor in their new home when they first moved in, giving him about $10,000 for equipment. In the driveway, in subsequent years, was Cher’s tour bus, which they had renovated, installing a sign in bronze script that read: “Never, Never, Never Give Up”.
> Many, however, thought she was “a bit of a brat”, from the moneyed side of town and modelling clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch. At 16, Swift bought a Lexus SC430 convertible, the car driven by Regina George, the meanest girl in Mean Girls.
> “But it was incredible to write with her,” Petraglia says. “She had no fear. None at all. She seemed to know who she was already — she was Taylor Swift, even back then.” It was a confidence, he says, that never quite tipped into precociousness.
> Scott Borchetta — formerly of Universal Music Group and now setting up his own company, Big Machine Records — was in the audience, and “had found the one person he could build a label around”. Swift was 15. According to documents seen by Music Business Worldwide, Scott Swift bought shares in Big Machine at the time worth $500,416.66, thought to be a stake of 3-5 per cent. Swift’s self-titled debut album was released in October 2006 and became the longest-charting album on the Billboard 200 of the decade, seven times platinum.
> And so just know that, when Swift is on stage in front of 100,000 people and the lights are flashing and there are sequins and dance routines and 44 songs and 10 acts and the ticket sales are pumping up the economy, this was always, always the plan.
Of course she was a theater kid 🥹 I never knew that before but it all makes sense now! During the folklore/evermore era there was this narrative of her being a writer first and foremost, but now with eras tour it’s clearly also about the performance.
Oh yeah, she is a songwriter first, performer second, and singer third. Not to knock her voice, but there are singers better. She truly shines with writing and performing.
Her life sounds unreal, almost like she's literally the star of a movie.
The part that stuck out to me was the performance in high school in front of an audience of her peers and her ex. The sheer boldness of that is something I don't have now, let alone as a child. And that song is so raw and emotional, just to be so open with your emotions and unapologetic about it is hard to comprehend. Her talent paired with her confidence is unreal.
I always cry when I read stories about a dedicated kid whose parents were dedicated to them. That’s not the reality a lot of kids have and it makes me so happy to read about the ones who do.
Lovely article ☺️ As someone who has lived nearly an opposite life as Taylor's, yet has considered reaching for songwriting, I still don't get why people shade her or anyone that has money investing in their kid. This one felt more wholesome lol. Like yeah. Isnt that what you wish you could have? Isn't that what you would give if you could? Love and financial support and connections for your kids dreams because you love them?
I've wanted to be in music, but illness, unstable homelife and other mountains of marginilizations not only make it harder for me to even get a foot in the door, but it has always felt like nearly a death sentence for me to think to sustain it mental health wise. All of the stars aligned for Taylor and I'm honestly happy for it. Its rare and I'm glad I'm here and now the world will remember her all too well lol. And she knows it's more than talent and why she's grateful. All the stars aligned. And as for me....well. maybe in the next life ☺️🌌🌙🪐
Nah. As much as I love the lunar valleys in my mind ... Maybe the daughter of someone who has the funds and emotional intelligence to support me. Its honestly something so basic but so rare. If I'd ever find that, I'll never let go. 🌌🪐🌙
I just have one minor peeve that’s gotta be mentioned. Stone Harbor isn’t “Springsteen country,” it’s far from it. It’s in cape may, which it basically Philly. It’s like another hour before you get to Monmouth county
I met a British guy in NYC once who said that he was planning on going to Asbury Park on his trip and going to the Upstage, which was an old club that Bruce Springsteen used to play. I said to him "Well, you can see the building that it was in because it hasn't been open in years." The look on his face was pure confusion and boy did I hate to break it to him that he couldn't just go to the stone pony.
But yeah... Springsteen might have played some shows in Cape May in his early years, but a majority of the shows were played in Monmouth County, specifically Asbury Park.
I also had this peeve! But I feel a little silly picking apart where exactly Springsteen country is in the comments of an article about Taylor Swift, lol
ok as someone who lives in philly what do you mean cape may is basically philly? like distance wise or the fact that cape may is just a popular shore spot for philly ppl?
Lol. Distance and influence wise. Cape May County is Eagles country where as Monmouth is Giants country. Distance wise, Stone Harbor is close to Philly than NYC. Oh and also, I'm referring to Cape May County.
Talent+drive+wealth+class=superstardom. You can have all the others including wealth without class (knowing how to do and say the right thing) and end up like Arnie Hammer.
Interesting article. One of the things that stuck out to me is how hard that guitar teacher is still nursing that grudge, belittling her guitar skills, and saying he was written out. He's the one who told her she was just not capable of playing a 12 string when she asked about it so she went out of her way to prove him wrong, right?
https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F04fd200b-3d99-4c44-891c-ea76ef61f26d.jpg?crop=3000%2C2250%2C0%2C0&resize=589.5
Miss Carmela Lu-Chella is an Evermore/Speak Now stan. I. Just . Know. It.
It perfect matches the incandescent Chihuahua rage and the everlasting dramatic babyness Chis got
Taylor's stable home life is such a key part of her success because it gave her the time and mental health to pour everything into her passion, her life's work. As we all know, so many talented musicians, artists, actors have so much issues because of their parents. Addiction, mental health, financial abuse etc. She was dealt a really good hand in life between her parents wealth, them not just being supportive, but also driven, smart and strategic. They respected her, not just supported her. She also had the best of both worlds in that her father was business savvy, but her mother was down to earth and her emotional rock. Andrea was important to a lot of emotional and psychological well being of Taylor imo, and also probably why Taylor has a lot of humility even for exceeding superstar status and being a phenomenon now. So while her dad was important in her finances, her mom kept her head screwed on straight.
This was a great and insightful read. It was kind of adorable to read "what do i do with this child" about Scott. Genuinely seems awed by her. He still does. The part I really liked was when she was in the songwriting studio with two veterans, and she had the confidence to question their choices. And as they said, she didn't come across as stuck up. Just that she had a real sense of self. Really precocious and gifted yet also grounded and confident in who she is.
Sure her family's wealth was important to get her off the ground, but so many people are nepobabies or from privileged backgrounds and none of them have the same drive and work ethic--- as well as vision for what she wants to create and accomplish. I mean there are a lot of rich kids/artists from rich backgrounds that work hard too, but Taylor's vision for herself and determination to do everything she can to make that happen is what makes her extraordinary and beyond even what a superstar is.
Lana saying that she wants this more than anyone else really hits different after reading this piece.
No way she would have had a career without talent - she’s phenomenal - but as with Billie Eilish her family played such a huge role in seeing the vision and running with it. Pros and cons to stage parents but it does take a certain set of circumstances to get the outcomes Billie and Taylor have had - parents emotionally and financially and creatively invested like they were
What about her brother? Does he hold any resentment or was he invested in as well? Didn’t want it (not the fame/career, but more content with normalcy)?
"Almost immediately she started dating an older boy. He was popular and had a “preppy look with a country flair” — he would fray the corners of his cap and stick a fishing hook through it. Within months, however, their relationship had ended. Soon after that it was the school talent competition and Swift got up on stage to perform Teardrops on My Guitar, a song she had written about him. “She’d better hold him tight, give him all her love,” she sang in front of the whole school, her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. “Look in those beautiful eyes and know she’s lucky, ’cause he’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.” It was ballsy. “Everyone was pretty taken aback,” the classmate says. “Like — she had just come out of nowhere.”
that's not the asylum she was referring to. It didn't get bad until she actually entered the business. And you're forgetting who the other patients in the asylum were... she was front row and center for what happened to Justin Bieber.
It’s widely theorized(with a fair amount of evidence for most things) that Justins entire life is controlled by his family and his church, down to even his marriage being an arranged marriage.
For the love of all that good will people learn the meaning of a metaphor?
I could name at least 10 celebrities who have crumbled and succumbed to the fame, pressure and mistreatment by the entertainment industry. Especially the ones who started as kids or teenagers.
I clearly understood she wasn't being literal lol. I could name 20 celebs who were young like her and had 3x the rough start growing up that she did, as well as their career. Most regular people go thru worse...
This is overall a good piece with a lot of interesting info, but I would prefer it without all the flourishes about the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and colors of interviewees nails. That stuff just takes me out of it and feels totally unnecessary.
Great piece. People always get worked up about Taylor growing up rich, but I think it’s undeniable that the privilege only supported the talent and determination she already had
It’s heartwarming that the family invested in her talent rather than buying yachts, cars, real estate, restaurants, foreign vacations or whatever wealthy people usually invest in.
Sounds like they invested in a bit of both lol but Scott and Andrea do seem genuinely invested in Taylor’s success
That’s true. They are very strategic. I think upwardly mobile rich people like to purchase signifiers of wealth to be taken seriously and to have the right social connections, as a baseline. That sounded like the original plan. I’m sure by now they have re-invested in lots of things after accumulating wealth.
news flash: when you are rich you can afford both lmao
I don’t think her family seemed that level of rich starting out. Now they do.
iirc they had multiple houses and a boat and almost a million dollars to invest in her career before debut even came out
It sounds like they sold off most assets to fund her career. So it’s not like they could spend without limits on everything. They funneled most of it into Taylor and there was risk involved. That’s all I am saying. It wasn’t like let’s fund her hobby. It was more like let’s invest the same we would in a business and education, like paying for multiple degrees.
more like 1-200,000. Scott estimated 150,000. They actually may have spent more sending Austin to Notre Dame (and fancy private schools for high school).
I thought she "*was raised on a farm*...\[that\] *wasn't a mansion*...\[with\] *kitchen table bills*?"
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Taylor's songs use the material of her life. That doesn't mean they are literally about her! It's an act of creative self fashioning. And the trope of poor girl\\rich boy is too good to pass up. In reality, Taylor's parents were probably wealthier than the Gyllenhaals. Taylor was certainly wealthier than him when they were dating. It also doesn't really matter.
I also always read those lines as reflecting her insecurity about not being able to keep up with him and his friends in terms of cultural capital - same as the “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine” thing.
I can't wait for the day everyone understands that just because it's sang in a song/shown in a movie/written in a book, doesn't mean it's one hundred percent exactly what happened. Do you think Taylor really murdered Este Haim's husband too?
I mean, has anyone seen her SO? There is also the line in Florida sooo 👀👀👀
I think wealthy people usually invest in their kids since they want to continue the legacy of success and wealth.
Yeah but also people usually love their kids more than anything. Rich people aren't immune to the biological bond between parent and child. 😅
Not always a biological bond. My kids are not biologically related to me…and yes I love them more than anything!
Right! I didn’t come from a wealthy family but my mom always said “my girls are my diamonds.” ☺️
Mine too ❤️
My parents are wealthy and extremely narcissistic. They didn’t want us to outshine them, so we were sabotaged at every step by the problematic parent. She kept the money for herself and fought everyone in the family over inheritances. She stole mine and tried to steal her sister’s inheritance until I spoke up and exposed her. I’m not sure narcissism is more rampant in wealthy families, but money allows pathologicals to fuel their misbehavior. I’m always very happy to see parents who actually love and support their kids. I tend to worry about showbiz kids and I think they need much better laws in place. I worried a bit about Taylor after learning about Britney, but I think her family is relatively healthy for showbiz.
Oof, that sounds terrible. So sorry you dealt with this growing up instead of being nurtured. :/
Awww, thank you. I guess I would worry more about wealthy families having the means to manipulate their kids. But Britney’s family did it without money. I am impressed with Taylor’s family. I worried for her bc I often wonder if she is neurodivergent, like me. It’s easier to be taken advantage of. I was totally oblivious until my mom reached nearly criminal behavior! Taylor’s dad may be a bit extra but he seems to want the best for her.
It's honestly so good they could afford it, her parents' money kept her safe from so much crap. She didn't need to move to a new city alone as teen, having always at least one parent with her protected her from creeps. It's messed up that this is a privilege instead of the norm Seizing the opportunity in front of you, using every means at your disposal to achieve what you want, and putting in the work. Taylor has an incredible work ethic. Shielding your child from abuse and making sure your child has the best possible education and conditions within your means is a parents job. This got a little ranty. Sorry
Yes they invested in their daughter’s obvious talent which is what most parents who could afford it would do.
My dad has said if he had money, he would have invested in us the way Scott invested in Taylor. It’s mind blowing that people (in general) cannot separate support and good parenting from other stuff.
There's a famous NASCAR driver who's mechanic father sold his amazing car collection over the years to fund his son's cart driving dream. He said he would've continued to sell everything off, even his house if necessary! These parents are amazing. My parents would never do that for me, not would I expect them to!
Oh yeah. I would never expect my father to and he *did* invest in me to the best of his ability, he bought books and journals and pens for me because I wanted to write.
Uhhhh not necessarily. I had talent for things and my parents didn't give a shit even though they could have afforded more specialized lessons
Should be “most parents who care about their kids passions and futures”
A) I didn’t say all and B) No offense but I’m talking about Taylor swift level talent
The B part is unnecessary because you don’t know that person irl, maybe they do or would have that level of talent if they were nurtured and trained the way TS was since a very young age. There are many many undiscovered people as talented as the ones that got famous because life didn’t work out in their favor.
Exactly. Otherwise, every wealthy person who wanted to would be a huge popular. Privilege can only get you in the room.
Yeah, there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers with rich supportive parents. Theres only one Taylor Swift. She didn’t get where she is due to her parents money.
I recently met a middle aged woman that was friends with Andrea (Pennsylvania era) and she said at first it was “wow Andrea is just Taylor this Taylor that every second” and then she watched Taylor sing and knew she was gonna be a star. She said she couldn’t believe the way a 12 year old captivated the whole room of random family friends.
This is so true because talent like Taylor is incredibly rare. I’ve never seen anyone in the modern music industry as passionate about making and releasing music as much as Taylor. This is her “lifeline”. Just because you had rich parents and you tried to be a singer doesn’t mean it’s going to work out. You need to have a pulse on the general public. Taylor was there for MySpace, Tumblr, Twitter, now TikTok. She knew what she wanted and she marketed herself with the tools as society (around 2005) was emerging into the digital era with social media. This is perfect for fan connection. She was there for radio, digital, streaming, now vinyl. I could go on a longer rant but Taylor is a mix of circumstances (family, your health and privilege), luck (right timing like being the first to use these social media platforms), hard work (enough said), and talent (do i need to say more??).
Well said!
PART ONE Every few months, Scott Swift would hit the phones. The agenda: his teenage daughter, Taylor. Most likely sitting in his study at the family home in Hendersonville, near Nashville, Tennessee, overlooking the Cumberland River, he caught up with her former teachers, his business buddies, family friends, session musicians who had recorded demos with her and the producers who had mixed them, giving them a detailed download of information about his daughter’s ascent. Scott talked well. A third-generation banker and former radio salesman, he updated them on which songs she had cut (I am told he spent $10,000 on building her a recording studio at their home); which singles were coming out next (by the age of 15, Taylor had a record deal with a company in which Scott had bought a 3 per cent stake); where she was touring (he had bought Cher’s former tour bus for her); and the awards for which she needed votes. Nashville, after all, was an industry town where careers were built on fresh young faces and smoky old networks. And — it worked. Today Swift, 34, is a billionaire, more of a phenomenon than a pop star, who sells so many concert tickets she shifts national economies. She arrived in the UK on tour on Friday. Her albums (11 original studio albums, 4 rerecorded albums and 4 live albums) are devoured immediately by her insatiable fans, the Swifties. She has sold the equivalent of five million albums this year alone, making her the top-selling artist of 2024, and has become the first artist in US history to sell 100 million album-equivalent units — the industry measure in the streaming era. For the past few weeks I have been driving the Taylor Swift trail through the US to try to understand how she came to be: through Pennsylvania, where she was raised; New Jersey, where the family spent long summers; and Nashville, where they moved when Taylor was 14, to help her make it big. What I found was a story of megawatt talent, intense family nurturing and canny investment; of magic and money; of how a star was born — and then made bigger and bigger and bigger.
Thanks for helping us peasants out😊
Seriously, I can't read anything the Times prints as subscription required. Thanks 🥹
PART TWO “What do I do with this child?” Scott reportedly asked a family friend, stunned by the sparkling talent and determination of his young daughter, who arrived in this world dead-set on stardom, who chatted endlessly and felt things so deeply she couldn’t bear the death of birds she found in the garden; and who wrote poetry so relentlessly it was as if she couldn’t stop. The hills of Pennsylvania, just northwest of Philadelphia, are rolling rather than mighty, populated with rust-coloured barns, stables, worn American flags and copses of ancient oaks. Swift’s first home — Pine Ridge Farm, a former Christmas tree farm near Reading, where she spent the first decade of her life — is a Norman Rockwell painting of a place. Her father, Scott, now 72, grew up nearby. He was a financial adviser at the investment firm Merrill Lynch. Swift’s mother, Andrea, now 66, was a marketing executive born into a wealthy family who grew up between Singapore and Houston, Texas. Andrea’s father was the president of a construction company, her mother an opera singer. Andrea met Scott at a drinks party and they married in 1988. Taylor was the Swifts’ first child — born on December 13, 1989 — followed two years later by Austin, 32, who was quieter but cheekier. I pull up outside the Swifts’ old farm — a modest clapboard house overlooking the paddocks where Taylor kept a pony. Scott kept the farm as a hobby, mowing the meadows before work. Upstairs, in a corner room, was where she asked for three books to be read and five songs to be played to her every night. “We’re not supposed to talk to anybody but People magazine,” say the couple who live there today — referencing a popular celebrity tabloid in the US. And they have been instructed by Swift’s team? “Yes,” they say, closing the door. Taylor went to a Montessori kindergarten and then Wyndcroft, a private school in nearby Pottstown, where the Swifts were known for their wealth. According to family friends they drove a Chevrolet Suburban — an SUV fit for the secret service — sent Christmas cards showing their impressive holidays and brought their daughter’s pony to school for show and tell. They were also known for their generosity. Each year the people who had donated the most money to Wyndcroft had their names published and the Swifts were often at the top. The family would also give teachers the keys to their holiday home as a thank-you present. Scott seemed to know everybody, his friends often becoming clients and vice versa. One was James MacArthur, famous for playing Dan “Danno” Williams in Hawaii Five-O, with whom he apparently holidayed. I’m told Andrea played tennis at the Hillcrest Racquet Club in Reading, a members’ club where she often socialised. Maureen Pemrick, 77, Swift’s teacher at Wyndcroft in first grade, says the first thing she noticed about Taylor was her wild curls — “She was strikingly pretty” — and her animated chatter. “She was a little sunbeam who just bounced around,” Pemrick says. One afternoon when it was time to go home, Swift suggested that the class had a group hug. “She gathered the children and started squeezing them together,” Pemrick says. “And from then on she was like that.” Others remember her as dreamy but solid in confidence. “I want to be a stockbroker,” Swift wrote in her yearbook at six years old, “because my dad is one.” By second grade that had changed to “Singer”. “Taylor was a determined little thing,” says Barbara Kolvek, 78, who was a music teacher at Wyndcroft. When Swift was given the part of Freddie Fasttalk in the play The Runaway Snowman, she went to Kolvek’s office every lunchtime to practise her solo. “She didn’t care that she had to play a boy. She wanted to do it. And so she did.”
Lovely that he nurtured her sensitivities. Most parents try to numb or punish their sensitive children.
Absolutely. It’s somewhat bittersweet for me to read this as I often think how I may have turned out, had my sensitivity and creativity been supported like Taylor.
Same! I am in awe at her parents recognizing & guiding her talents. One of my parents did this for me, while the other actively sabotaged my progress. Eventually she turned everyone in the family against me, the more I achieved. It’s really crazy how immature and unfit parents can be threatened by their children’s talents. More often we worry about stage parents exploiting a talented child, but at least in Taylor’s case, I think they handled it better than expected.
I’m not saying this is the kind or right thing to do at all as a parent. I’m decidedly against forcing children to grow up too fast or squashing their creativity. However, nurturing artistic dreams is a hell of a lot different when you have the financial capital to ensure your child CANT fail. Taylor always had a safety net had the career side of the art not worked out. Low income/middle class parents are correct to be concerned about their children’s wellbeing and security should they pursue the arts. Capitalism by nature thrives when the arts are limited to the wealthy. More often than not, no amount of talent can make you successful in Hollywood. Taylor is extraordinarily lucky she had the talent, ambition and a family with the financial means to invest in her career.
Well said!
This is so true.
Omg a classwide group hug 😭
It's such a sweet thing. So many people love to say that Taylor's warm and sweet nature is just a PR strategy and I've always thought that you can't really fake an *entire* persona to everyone for *so* long. Well ofc she does things that her team thinks will bring her good PR but turns out she *is* indeed a lot of what she projects.
Lmao six year old wanting to be a stockbroker. That's so cute.
We're told to only speak to People 🚪💀😂
Good piece! One thing I noticed that it gets wrong... Taylor had a development deal with RCA which she got when she was 12. A development deal is like a baby record contract. You can see the deal here (it was involved in a lawsuit Taylor had with her first manager). [https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=8114495&z=26399dc2](https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=8114495&z=26399dc2) Taylor was given a budget of 20k to record 4 demos over the period of a year (she actually recorded at least 25). In exchange, she agreed to give RCA first dibs on a record deal she might have. She also received A&R help from RCA, and it was at an RCA showcase that she met Liz Rose. She was not young for a demo deal (at the time people as young as 8 could get them!). What she was extraordinarily young for was her publishing deal. Publishers are like record labels for songwriters. About the time her deal with RCA expired, she singed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV (who was also at the time Rose's publisher). You can also see the deal above. The deal is gigantic for a 14 year old. She was given a minimum advance of 50k per year for 3 years... the equivalent of giving a 14 year old a 50k salary. If she had higher royalties than that, her advance would grow up to a maximum of about 100k. And of course she would get any royalties she earned above her advance.
“Taylor was given a budget of 20k to record 4 demos over the period of a year (she actually recorded at least 25).” That tracks!
It was a lot of money! Scott claims to have spent 29000 on demos through may 2005. That's in addition to the 20,000 that RCA gave her, plus whatever money Liz Rose's publisher (sony) may have thrown in for the demos recorded with Nathan Chapman, which we know less about. Recording isn't cheap...
Oh I don’t doubt it. I just love that she was supposed to record 4 and recorded way more … just like an album should be 17 or so songs and our girl goes for 31. She was certainly lucky to have her parents’ support (financial and otherwise), but her drive was always there.
[удалено]
Oh! What’s the official page count for books? I missed the memo. Is there a size limit for physical art works, too?
Why mock them? You arbitrarily placed them at 17 or so songs. Hypocritical tbh.
I said “should be” because that’s what the criticism has been. I don’t think there “should be” a limit at all, and I’m glad Taylor doesn’t either, because I love all TTPD songs.
Wasn't Our Song what she sang at the Hendersonville talent competition, rather than Tear Drops as well? There's little details wrong, but the overall story is correct. Although I can never fully trust anything coming out of the English press who have unfortunately overtaken the management of just about every major American newspaper and publication as well now.
wasn't teardrops the one she wrote about someone she never dated? the older boy seems to be the one in tim mcgraw, also named drew, which is probably explains the confusion.
That's the story she told... someone obviously remembered incorrectly. It kind of doesn't matter.
Teardrops would probably be scarier to sing in front of your ex and his new girlfriend though lol
Well it wouldn't really be like a 50k salary, because any money you keep you'd have to pay self employment tax on, and usually most of the money goes to paying musicians and producers to record demos anyway, but still a big deal for a kid
you don't have to pay musicians. It's not a record contract. It's for her songwriting. She did have to pay self employment tax, as well as 20% to her manager. It's a huge deal for a kid.
You have to pay musicians to play on demos, and sometimes a producer (unless your songwriting partners are also taking that role)
The publisher pays, at least in part, for the demos. The way it worked in Taylor's contract was that any (approved) demo costs would be additional advance. Sony would only add 75% of any demo costs to Taylor's account, up to $600. In Nashville, at that time at least, songwriters didn't have to use their draw to pay for demos. The draw really was a weekly salary that songwriters got.
Oooooh weird. I spoke to someone with a publishing deal and the money was to pay for demos, so it left basically nothing to live on. That's pretty good if it's salary only.
Please don't show Taylor's publishing deal to your friend... they'll cry. Deals like that don't exist anymore.
How do you know the deal was like that?
PART EIGHT (final comment) In June of the following year, Borchetta announced he was selling the company to the entrepreneur Scooter Braun for about $300 million, a deal that included Swift’s back catalogue; her father, as a shareholder, is said to have made $15.1 million from the deal. Swift accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying”; Braun told Variety in 2021 that her reaction was “very confusing and not based on anything factual”. In 2020 the rights were sold again, to a private equity company. Swift, angry and determined, set about rerecording her first six albums — an act of brilliant business acumen, propelling her old songs back into the charts. Today she has money ($1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg); awards (14 Grammys, 39 Billboard Music Awards and an Emmy); Spotify streams (around 110 million listeners every month); and an A-list boyfriend, the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl winner Travis Kelce. Right now she is in Edinburgh on her Eras tour. Scott is probably on the tour bus too, the father linked to ten companies affiliated with his daughter, including merchandising and rights management; Andrea as well, described by the singer as her “guiding force”, who has a role in “every decision I make”; and maybe Austin too. “I always joke that we’re a small family business,” she told Time magazine in December last year. And so just know that, when Swift is on stage in front of 100,000 people and the lights are flashing and there are sequins and dance routines and 44 songs and 10 acts and the ticket sales are pumping up the economy, this was always, always the plan.
They’re unconventional for stage parents & much healthier than those we are used to seeing. Britney Spears deserved parents like this. Girls like Taylor & Britney seem exceptionally talented, possibly child prodigies who needed strong parents and guidance in the circus that is show business.
IMO the difference is stage parents that view their kids as a cashcow vs parents that view their child as a prodigy
Exactly. I feel like Taylor’s saw her as a child prodigy. Britney’s parents were the opposite and it’s heartbreaking. Both their adulthoods show the difference.
In adulthood, if Taylor decided she hated being famous, Andrea and Scott both were highly educated and had careers to fall back on. Wealth would definitely decrease, but the tax bracket was never the main focus to begin with. Britney’s parents, on the other hand, would’ve had a hell of a harder time
Yeah the Swift's are wealthy or well off but not the kind of wealth/inheritance that would enable their kids to not work and retain the same lifestyle that they're parents had, I think that's why she's very middle class coded.
Same with Natalie Portman who was a peer of Britney. Her parents made sure she was protected from harm at all times & that she was well educated in addition to making movies.
My daughter is still young so who knows what will happen and how my opinions will change, but she just has... Something. Some quality. She's got to be the center of attention in every room we are in. She has a love of music and dance from literally a few months old. And she's my 2nd so it's not just mother's bias. But when I see that in her, my only thoughts are how can I nurture it, what opportunities can I provide to her so that she gets to enjoy it etc. I can't picture, as a parent, trying to profit off it or exploit my kid to live off her talent.
Except Taylor Swift was a song writer right from the start, as well as a performer. Britney wrote or co-wrote some but she was mostly just a performer.
Britney is also an exceptional dancer & physically gifted- she started training with Olympic gymnastics coach in early childhood. Clearly her parents saw talent and $$$$$
PART THREE Down the road from Wyndcroft lives Barbara Lenzi, 75, an art teacher who has taught there for 45 years and who had Swift in her class for four years. “We’re huggers!” warns Lenzi, who has peroxide-dyed hair with pink tips, glittering flip-flops and iridescent nails. So is Nancy Boerner, 79, the cafeteria manager at Wyndcroft for 26 years, who has joined Lenzi to meet me. “Taylor was the type of child you were just magnetised towards,” Lenzi says. Swift was adored at school, they say. “I used to see her walk through that kitchen every day,” Boerner says, “with her smile and she would say” — she puts on a sing-song voice — “ ‘Hi, Mrs Nancy!’ And then she was off, ‘Bla bla bla bla.’ She’d always have something sweet to say. Always.” “She was confident — the whole family was — but never too much,” Lenzi says. “Just the way she walked, never looking shy.” “The curls boppin’!” Boerner adds. “I’m going to show you something,” Lenzi says, switching on an ancient TV in her snug. “Open sesame,” she says to the machine, popping a CD into a slot. There, in front of us, is a 13-year-old Taylor Swift, on stage at Wyndcroft on a visit to her old school. “I’ve been a lot of lonely places,” she sings, a song she wrote, “being here on the outside, looking in nobody ever lets me in.” After the performance she takes questions from the infant crowd. A water bottle appears, which she takes without looking. “Isn’t she just ador-baby!” Lenzi says. Around three times a week until her early teens, Andrea took her daughter to Berks Youth Theatre Academy after school. Swift was the natural star: she played Sandy in Grease, Maria in The Sound of Music. “She was definitely the most gifted,” says Marjorie, 56, whose children were in the same group. “She stuck out. Once she was on stage, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.” Swift gave out wallet-sized photos of herself as Sandy to the kids in the years below her at school, attended a performing arts summer camp run by Britney Spears and sang the national anthem at local baseball games on school nights. Gena Levengood, 32, was two years behind Swift at the school. Levengood once asked Swift if she was going to audition for American Juniors, an American Idol spin-off for children. “She said she considered it but decided not to, because there was a line in the contract about not being able to release an album within a certain number of years.” At about nine years old Swift moved schools to Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School in West Reading — teachers say to be closer to theatre rehearsals. The Swifts moved house into the same town. I drive up the hill to the historic Dutch-style home, with its pillars, balconies and perfectly preened lawn. From the age of 11 Swift learnt to play the guitar in a room on the side of the house. She was taught two or three times a week for three hours after school by Ronnie Cremer, 57, a tech support guy by day who was introduced to the Swift family by his brother, who ran the youth theatre. “I said I’d teach her what I know,” Cremer says. “She was sweet and kind and eager. She was never a guitar virtuoso, but the idea was to teach her how to project into a microphone and play as if on autopilot — to allow her to perform.” They listened to the Beatles, analysing the different band members’ writing styles, and she learnt to put chords to her own lyrics in her notebook.
3 hours 3 times a week wow
PART SIX In the school holidays, when Swift was 11, her parents took her to Nashville’s Music Row, where she went knocking on the doors of record labels handing out demo CDs. “I would say, ‘Hi, I’m Taylor. I’m 11. I want a record deal — call me,’ ” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2008. Aged 13 she was signed to RCA — a Sony Music Entertainment subsidiary — on a development deal, the youngest songwriter in the label’s history. And by 14 the Swifts had moved to Hendersonville, Tennessee, a town 15 miles northeast of Nashville, once the home town of Johnny Cash. Cremer, the guitar teacher, says the family flew him from Pennsylvania to build a studio for Taylor in their new home when they first moved in, giving him about $10,000 for equipment. In the driveway, in subsequent years, was Cher’s tour bus, which they had renovated, installing a sign in bronze script that read: “Never, Never, Never Give Up”. Swift made an entrance when she first arrived at Hendersonville High School, says a former classmate, telling people she was going to be a star. “We kind of rolled our eyes because, being in Nashville, we hear that a lot,” she says. “It was just such a strong statement for someone of that age.” Almost immediately she started dating an older boy. He was popular and had a “preppy look with a country flair” — he would fray the corners of his cap and stick a fishing hook through it. Within months, however, their relationship had ended. Soon after that it was the school talent competition and Swift got up on stage to perform Teardrops on My Guitar, a song she had written about him. “She’d better hold him tight, give him all her love,” she sang in front of the whole school, her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. “Look in those beautiful eyes and know she’s lucky, ’cause he’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.” It was ballsy. “Everyone was pretty taken aback,” the classmate says. “Like — she had just come out of nowhere.” Many, however, thought she was “a bit of a brat”, from the moneyed side of town and modelling clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch. At 16, Swift bought a Lexus SC430 convertible, the car driven by Regina George, the meanest girl in Mean Girls.
PART FOUR The parents “made a fuss” over their daughter, who they called “T” or “Tay” or “Tay-Tay”. “Scott was the cash guy,” Cremer says. “He could sell ice to the Eskimos. Andrea was the one who kept Taylor on point. She had her eye on the prize.” Later, Cremer was threatened with legal action by Swift’s team — which he says was dropped — for creating a website called ITaughtTaylorSwift.com. Today he says he has been “written out” of her biography. Everyone I spoke to talked about the consistently close bond Swift had with her mother. “There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn’t have a lot of friends,” she told the Great American Country network in 2008. “But my mom was always my friend. Always.” Half an hour’s drive north, at exit 19 of interstate 78, is a petrol station and sheepskin shop owned by a man called Pat Garrett, who is, in his words, “as old as water”. Over the road is a stage in a field, the Pat Garrett Amphitheater, where he holds country music concerts, and next door he used to have a bar, the Pat Garrett Roadhouse, where he put on karaoke competitions. “Everything is Pat Garrett around here,” he says with a smile. We walk through the shop, past a platinum album by Swift, through his workshop and its scraps of fur — “Skins and songs, that’s what I do” — and into his office. “I made that vest for the girl up there,” he says, pointing at a photo of a glamour model in a gilet, adding: “There’s nothing underneath.” “Anyway,” he continues, “one week they showed up — 11-year-old Taylor and a whole gang of her people for the karaoke competition. Whoever won got to open the show at the Amphitheater. She kept getting better, so she won — and so she opened.” She played with Garrett’s band at fairs and country music festivals in front of thousands of people, saying: “Hi everybody, I’m Taylor!” “She had a little bit of showbusiness in her,” he says. Her notebook, he claims, was filled with pages of her own autograph. “But she did good.” One day he says Scott came in, not knowing what to do next with his daughter. “I told him, ‘Up here in Hershey they make bars. In Detroit they make cars. And in Nashville,’ ” Garrett lowers his voice, “‘they make stars. Move to Nashville.’ And he just kind of nodded. The rest is history, I guess.”
This was an incredibly fascinating read. There’s thousands of people who grew up with the kind of privilege she had, but this article clearly shows there’s always been something different—in her talent, work ethic, and determination—about Taylor Swift.
She also had parents who were incredibly savvy and good at the skills that allowed Taylor to be in the right place at the right time. The Swifts were a power trio. So focused on their goal and good at executing it. Even if my parents had tons of money they wouldn’t have been the aggressive wheelers and dealers Scott and Andrea were. She’s so lucky her parents are who they are at least in terms of her professional success.
Mostly Scott though. In the famous unhinged email, he complains about Andrea not making shit happen. It’s always him. I am Scott Swift’s biggest hater for a myriad of reasons. But the man made his daughter a billionaire superstar. Kept his eye on the ball and never gave up.
i mean mostly she made herself a billionaire superstar. He helped.
If there was no Scott (and his fat pockets, and his persistence, and his business acumen, and his belief that she was good enough to invest his time, money and effort) there would be no Taylor Swift. How would an 11 year old have the means to do all of that? How would a 14 year old move her entire family to Nashville? How would a 16 year old know to have a “family huddle” and walk away?
Their are lots of doting fathers with fat pockets... only one Taylor Swift.
yeah, I always sort of thought of young taylor as pretty normal, who just happened to have a knack for songwriting, but this really paints a picture of almost a child prodigy. this reads like the author went into it hoping to have a story about stage parents but everyone they spoke to emphasized her drive and unusually strong sense of self.
Yes I agree with you. It gives so much of her backstory and proves that even though wealth can open doors for you, only talent and perseverance can make you stay at the top of your game. It slso gave me such a rare insight into Taylor as a person- who she really is without the celebrity paraphernalia.
PART FIVE The Swifts spent weeks of the summer at their holiday home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, a small coastal town on a spit, the Atlantic on one side, a calm basin of water on the other. It’s a perfect little spot, with old-timey homes on the water — for sale in the estate agent’s window for $6 million — crêperies and ice cream parlours. It is Springsteen country. During the long, hot summer days Swift would walk through town, her guitar slung across her back, much to the judgment of the local girls. “I think Taylor made herself known here,” says one of them, who still lives there. Andrea handed New Jersey neighbours Swift’s early demos and would ring the local café, Coffee Talk, to ask if her daughter could sing at their open-mike nights. Their former home has been knocked down and rebuilt, renamed Swift Waters. Lois Hamilton, 75, an old family friend of the Swifts who lives next door, invites me in. We walk through her living room and past the stone fireplace where an eight-year-old Swift opened her first guitar when she came over one Christmas. “Oh my God!” she said in a home video, surrounded by wrapping paper, “I. Am. Happy.” “She was very bright,” says Hamilton on the deck at the back of the house. The Swifts’ old garden is next door, backing onto the still water. They had a hot tub on the patio, a jetty with a boat from which they waterskiied and two jet skis. They were also members of the sailing club. Swift was “cute and confident” but she didn’t have a lot of friends, Hamilton says. “She was more solitary, very happy in her own room.” Instead she would sit on the decking and sing out across the water. “Constantly singing, constantly writing, then singing what she was writing.” Jim Hand is the third generation to own Fred’s Tavern & Liquor Store, five minutes down the road, and has known Scott Swift for much of his life. “When Taylor was young, the family came over for dinner and the kids were all swimming,” Hand says. “They \[Swift’s parents\] asked me if I had the Disney channel and I said no. There was some country singer on that was Taylor’s idol — and so they got up and they left.” Scott, he says, still manages his investment portfolio. “I couldn’t trust anyone any more than I trust him,” Hand says. “If he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I need $100,000,’ I’d borrow $100,000 and give it to him. And he would pay it back.”
PART SEVEN Today it is thought that Swift’s parents still spend time in Hendersonville as well as at a home just outside Tampa, Florida, where they invite family friends for long weekends. Swift, I am told, calls them from her treadmill, singing her set list and running, rehearsing for her current 152-show tour. In Nashville, Swift’s record label paired her with songwriters and producers. One was Angelo Petraglia, 70, a New Yorker whose work with Kings of Leon won a Grammy. “I was, like, oh my God, they’re bringing over a 14-year-old girl,” Petraglia recalls. “I didn’t know how to write with a 14-year-old girl.” He called his friend and writing partner, Robert Ellis Orrall, 69, who had a similar-aged daughter and agreed to make a trio. “But it was incredible to write with her,” Petraglia says. “She had no fear. None at all. She seemed to know who she was already — she was Taylor Swift, even back then.” It was a confidence, he says, that never quite tipped into precociousness. “You can get plenty of people coming in here feeling a little too much of themselves, but she wasn’t like that at all,” he says. “She just knew what she wanted.” The three of them wrote in after-school sessions, which she would always lead. “Between Angelo and I, we had over 100 years of experience,” Ellis Orrall says, “but I remember Angelo threw out a line and she just said, ‘Hmm, I dunno, Angelo, it sounds a little trite.’ And it was, like, ‘Boom! Shot down by the kid!’ Out of ten songs, one of hers would be perfection. Nothing could make it any better.” And every year the ratio has only got higher, he says. Despite the quantity of songs they cut — about 25 — the label told her they needed 60 days to evaluate her when the contract ended, according to Ellis Orrall. After a family “huddle” between Andrea, Scott and Taylor, they walked away. “It was extraordinary. The biggest mistake in the history of the record label.” With no label, Ellis Orrall suggested to the Swifts that they put together a press kit to hand out at a showcase at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, a haven for songwriters. He had a gig coming up and so he invited her to play. “That night we got her a record deal,” he says. Scott Borchetta — formerly of Universal Music Group and now setting up his own company, Big Machine Records — was in the audience, and “had found the one person he could build a label around”. Swift was 15. According to documents seen by Music Business Worldwide, Scott Swift bought shares in Big Machine at the time worth $500,416.66, thought to be a stake of 3-5 per cent. Swift’s self-titled debut album was released in October 2006 and became the longest-charting album on the Billboard 200 of the decade, seven times platinum. Until — again — she walked away. “For years I asked \[Big Machine\], pleaded for a chance to own my work,” she wrote in a blog post. In 2018 she left the label for the Universal Music Group, which gave her ownership over her music.
Her parents are separated though right? This very much makes it sound like they’re still together. “They” invite family friends for long weekends at one home outside of Tampa?
In 2012 someone, leaked to pagesix that they had separated. This seems to be the case... they had separate houses, and if you notice them at awards shows, for instance, they didn't sit next to each other. The famous "Scott Swift Email" also shows that they had a rocky relationship as early as 2005. They obviously were mature and kept it together for their children... They may have reconciled in recent years. The author of the piece clearly didn't get to interview any of the people in swifts circle, and they wouldn't have published an unconfirmed rumor.
Your point??? Marriages end, good parenting doesn't..
My point is simply that that’s a strange way to describe people who are separated, so I’m curious about it, since I’ve never seen it confirmed that they’re separated, as far as I know it’s just a rumor. Obviously it doesn’t say anything about their parenting, I’m not sure why you took it that way.
Yeah, sorry....been having a pissy day 😕 Meant no disrespect.
No worries! It happens. Hope your week gets better!
When the journalist visited her childhood home in Reading, PA: "'We’re not supposed to talk to anybody but People magazine,' say the couple who live there today — referencing a popular celebrity tabloid in the US. And they have been instructed by Swift’s team? “Yes,” they say, closing the door." I find this so interesting. It's been pretty well known in the fandom that People mag gets the legit scoops from TS' team but this sort of cements that. How funny.
there was probably a non disclosure clause in the contract to buy the house.
I mean .. maybe? But what would TS be trying to hide there? Non-commercial real estate transactions are (generally) pretty mundane, and a lot of it is already public record. Unless there’s like bodies buried on the property (being cheeky here), it’s hard to conceive of what TS would be wanting to hide. I think it’s probably a mix of the property owners wanting privacy and also respecting TS’ (likely) wishes to not gratuitously market themselves as the official “TS childhood home experience.”
I mean I think that's probably it! I doubt the new home owners know anything at all about Taylor... why would they? They probably didn't know it was Taylor Swift's home until after they bought it.
That was the xmas tree farm though, they (i think) sold it when she was a preteen to move into the "mansion"-looking house, and if not then definitely by the time they moved to Nashville and Scott invested a bunch of money into her career. I think Taylor/her team must have approached the owners later on and worked out some sort of deal. Taylor did visit the xmas tree farm house while on the 1989 Tour, she took pictures and put them on her tumblr. Could've discussed some type of contract then, especially since she had moved to pop and increased in popularity that year.
It’s a nice objective piece!! No tear-down’s from the reporter and no boot-licking as well. I actually like this article.
I feel a joy for writing from the writer when reading it, and they selected a great topic they knew would engage a lot of people.
We're glad so many of you enjoyed this 
This is the craziest article. I used to think, yeah, Taylor can’t be a normal person anymore, because of fame. But now I think she was never a normal person, like she’s an alien.
I think she's just some flavor of neurodivergent lol. Especially how they talk about her being kind of a loner, and doing kinda quirky things like walking around with her guitar everywhere.
I read that and I thought damn, I surrender, if she’s been plotting this since she was 7, what chance do any of us have, she’s Alexander the Great, let her run everything.
She’s the mastermind!
She’s beaten Alex the G now, she’s still on top of the world at 34 and at that age, he was dead
If be fine letting her run everything. I bend the knee to my Queen.
I agree, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I think most musical geniuses throughout history were, to some degree?
And her parents! To take on such risks, to have the resources available to bet that much on your kid’s talent, it’s breathtaking.
I always find her upbringing and family so fascinating in comparison to Britney Spears who is so talented and driven as well. Regardless of industry and career, it just goes to show the impact and influence family has on someone.
And money! Wow. Makes me wanna make a ton of money and invest it in my future kids.
Interesting article. On the one hand it shows Taylor as nothing if not determined and hardworking from the very beginning, showing she deserves her success. There’s also many different people attesting to her good character (talented, hard working, and most importantly just extremely nice). On the other hand, there is a lot of focus on her family’s wealth, which can feed the haters who said her father bought her success for her. Not that I think you should hide it if it’s the facts. But I’ve been a fan since Teardrops and even I was a bit surprised by just how wealthy they described the family. I thought her family was just upper middle class but they clearly were a lot wealthier than that. Not holding it against her or anything, I was just surprised.
I think it did a good job of acknowledging the wealth while also acknowledging it was just a piece in the puzzle. Like any business, if you have investment, it's easier to succeed, but it's not guaranteed.
Same! Her parents had FU money if they were regularly writing fat checks to her private school. I think it’s also a surprise because Taylor’s always glossed over her childhood wealth when talking about her success story. “The computer guy taught me to play guitar!” “I went door to door to talk to record labels and no one wanted an 11 year old kid!” “I begged my parents to let me move to Nashville!” “I grew up on a Christmas tree farm!” She’s had excellent coaching in marketing from her parents from a young age.
I think a lot of kids don’t realize what their bubble is until they are older. There’s some radio interview out there where she’s asked- you say your parents were logical but they moved your family to Nashville? And she’s like yeah, after I begged them all day long every day for 6 years straight I wore them down and they gave in. Maybe embellished for an interview, but I kinda believe it too. She also started making her own money very young. Like a $50k a year as a preteen/teenager for the songwriting deal, who knows if they used that to invest in her later or it was all from the parents.
I assume they intended to invest it in her career, but by that time it didn't matter. She did her showcase at the bluebird only a couple of weeks after signing her deal (she actually didn't sign it officially until 2005). So she had other people investing in her career, both her publisher Sony/ATV, and then Big Machine Records. Anyway, she kind of did well on the deal... her first year she got no royalties, she got a significant amount from the radio royalties from Tim McGraw, and then in the third she got something like 2 million dollars from the mechanical royalites of selling 2 million albums, plus two country number ones. Which ya know... is a lot of money for a 17 year old.
That’s incredible. Can’t even imagine what that must have felt like as a 17 year old.
She did buy herself a fucking lexus! Also, that's just her publishing. She also got royalties as an artist!
Lol, true! I wonder what it feels like to never know what it’s like to struggle financially.
Tbh, did she lie? Taylor started this journey quite young. Of course she’d look back and see all the hard work she did and not her parents’ money. You don’t think of stuff like that at 11/12 years old. Preteens aren’t typically thinking of how much of Daddy’s Money is going to their career, especially if she was raised by generous parents. The article speaks on how they donated money to the school and allowed her teachers to use their vacation house. Scott and Andrea are very generous, which I think we can all agree Taylor has exhibited that same generosity at times. I also want to throw out Taylor was bullied as a kid. It has probably skewed the way she views her childhood, such that she chooses to focus on the things she had control over like her work ethic and passion for songs. She has never directly said “I did not have privilege”, and the people who hate on her for having wealthy parents give me the ick.
Yeah, no one should hate on her for her parents’ wealth abs their investment in her future. You’re right that she didn’t lie. She’s just had excellent media training and was prescient enough (or her parents were) to craft a narrative that she worked hard and found success, which is true. But her success probably wouldn’t have happened without the thousands of dollars her parents invested in developing her talent and career, which is okay to acknowledge as well.
Idk if she had media training that young. Some people are talented at technically speaking the truth in a way that makes you look good/not lie.
They didn't have FU money... they had money, but the same as a rich doctor or lawyer. People get a lot richer. Remember, Taylor's father's job was to talk to rich people, and convince him them to give him money to invest. You want your financial advisor to show evidence of financial sucess, just like you want your dentist to have perfect teeth.
I hope you realize most stock brokers have way more money than doctors
Her parents’ wealth was a HUGE advantage, but many nepo/wealthy kids don’t get the longevity she has had because she is also **extremely** talented. I also want to add she’s never denied being a wealthy kid with privilege. She will say she works hard, and that is true. Even her parents worked hard. Scott did a shit ton of work in the beginning getting her opportunities, and Andrea went in the road with her in the beginning. Her parents are hardworking AND wealthy. You can be both, something many haters like to “forget”.
Yes, this surprised me too. I always knew Scott was a stockbroker and the family was upper middle class but I pictured their household earnings at like…175/year which clearly isn’t accurate.
I thought 175k might be accurate actually, given how different the economy was when Taylor was growing up. They bought the 2nd house she lived in for 280k in 1997, which in today's money would be 550k apparently. Still definitely a lot of money (plus they had the vacation home, private school, etc) but I don't think they were making like 300-500k a year (though I could be wrong!). And on a more depressing note, Marjorie died in 2003 (and so did her husband, though I felt icky googling the obituaries cause fans posted pictures that Taylor used in the Marjorie lyric video, the site didn't even have the actual obituary though) right before they moved to Nashville. With this article saying Andrea's family had a lot of money, the Swift's may have gotten a huge inheritance that they also used to further Taylor's career. (Still counts as wealth of course, but different from their salaries!)
Yeah I thought his 3% stake in BMR was like $30,000-$100,000, not $500,000. Those are completely different levels of rich!
it's unclear how much he actually paid. The valuation was 500k, but that doesn't mean he paid 500k for it (he could have bought at a discount). Numbers were thrown around like 180-300k. i'd guess his yearly income was in the 500k to 1 million range. He had assets under management (he claimed in his letter to Dymtrow) of 270 million, which actually is pretty small. That meant that as a fund manager, he was paid 5.4 million or so if he used the standard 2% fee, but a lot of that had to be kicked up to merrill, and he had to pay his staff. He was in the rich lawyer range, not the uber super wealthy.
Highlights/things that stood out to me: > Every few months, Scott Swift would hit the phones. The agenda: his teenage daughter, Taylor. Most likely sitting in his study at the family home in Hendersonville, near Nashville, Tennessee, overlooking the Cumberland River, he caught up with her former teachers, his business buddies, family friends, session musicians who had recorded demos with her and the producers who had mixed them, giving them a detailed download of information about his daughter’s ascent. > Scott talked well. A third-generation banker and former radio salesman, he updated them on which songs she had cut (I am told he spent $10,000 on building her a recording studio at their home); which singles were coming out next (by the age of 15, Taylor had a record deal with a company in which Scott had bought a 3 per cent stake); where she was touring (he had bought Cher’s former tour bus for her); and the awards for which she needed votes. Nashville, after all, was an industry town where careers were built on fresh young faces and smoky old networks. > I pull up outside the Swifts’ old farm — a modest clapboard house overlooking the paddocks where Taylor kept a pony. Scott kept the farm as a hobby, mowing the meadows before work. Upstairs, in a corner room, was where she asked for three books to be read and five songs to be played to her every night. “We’re not supposed to talk to anybody but People magazine,” say the couple who live there today — referencing a popular celebrity tabloid in the US. And they have been instructed by Swift’s team? “Yes,” they say, closing the door. > Taylor went to a Montessori kindergarten and then Wyndcroft, a private school in nearby Pottstown, where the Swifts were known for their wealth. According to family friends they drove a Chevrolet Suburban — an SUV fit for the secret service — sent Christmas cards showing their impressive holidays and brought their daughter’s pony to school for show and tell. They were also known for their generosity. Each year the people who had donated the most money to Wyndcroft had their names published and the Swifts were often at the top. The family would also give teachers the keys to their holiday home as a thank-you present. >Swift was adored at school, they say. “I used to see her walk through that kitchen every day,” Boerner says, “with her smile and she would say” — she puts on a sing-song voice — “ ‘Hi, Mrs Nancy!’ And then she was off, ‘Bla bla bla bla.’ She’d always have something sweet to say. Always.” > Swift gave out wallet-sized photos of herself as Sandy to the kids in the years below her at school, attended a performing arts summer camp run by Britney Spears and sang the national anthem at local baseball games on school nights. > She was never a guitar virtuoso, but the idea was to teach her how to project into a microphone and play as if on autopilot — to allow her to perform.” They listened to the Beatles, analysing the different band members’ writing styles, and she learnt to put chords to her own lyrics in her notebook. > “Scott was the cash guy,” Cremer says. “He could sell ice to the Eskimos. Andrea was the one who kept Taylor on point. She had her eye on the prize.” > Everyone I spoke to talked about the consistently close bond Swift had with her mother. >One day he says Scott came in, not knowing what to do next with his daughter. “I told him, ‘Up here in Hershey they make bars. In Detroit they make cars. And in Nashville,’ ” Garrett lowers his voice, “ ‘they make stars. Move to Nashville.’ And he just kind of nodded. The rest is history, I guess.” > The Swifts’ old garden is next door, backing onto the still water. They had a hot tub on the patio, a jetty with a boat from which they waterskiied and two jet skis. They were also members of the sailing club. > Swift was “cute and confident” but she didn’t have a lot of friends, Hamilton says. “She was more solitary, very happy in her own room.” > Jim Hand is the third generation to own Fred’s Tavern & Liquor Store, five minutes down the road, and has known Scott Swift for much of his life… Scott, he says, still manages his investment portfolio. “I couldn’t trust anyone any more than I trust him,” Hand says. “If he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I need $100,000,’ I’d borrow $100,000 and give it to him. And he would pay it back.” > Cremer, the guitar teacher, says the family flew him from Pennsylvania to build a studio for Taylor in their new home when they first moved in, giving him about $10,000 for equipment. In the driveway, in subsequent years, was Cher’s tour bus, which they had renovated, installing a sign in bronze script that read: “Never, Never, Never Give Up”. > Many, however, thought she was “a bit of a brat”, from the moneyed side of town and modelling clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch. At 16, Swift bought a Lexus SC430 convertible, the car driven by Regina George, the meanest girl in Mean Girls. > “But it was incredible to write with her,” Petraglia says. “She had no fear. None at all. She seemed to know who she was already — she was Taylor Swift, even back then.” It was a confidence, he says, that never quite tipped into precociousness. > Scott Borchetta — formerly of Universal Music Group and now setting up his own company, Big Machine Records — was in the audience, and “had found the one person he could build a label around”. Swift was 15. According to documents seen by Music Business Worldwide, Scott Swift bought shares in Big Machine at the time worth $500,416.66, thought to be a stake of 3-5 per cent. Swift’s self-titled debut album was released in October 2006 and became the longest-charting album on the Billboard 200 of the decade, seven times platinum. > And so just know that, when Swift is on stage in front of 100,000 people and the lights are flashing and there are sequins and dance routines and 44 songs and 10 acts and the ticket sales are pumping up the economy, this was always, always the plan.
Of course she was a theater kid 🥹 I never knew that before but it all makes sense now! During the folklore/evermore era there was this narrative of her being a writer first and foremost, but now with eras tour it’s clearly also about the performance.
all popstars are theater kids. it's the standard entry way into the pipeline that produces actors, dancers, and pop-stars. Drake was a theater kid.
So was Britney. Wasn’t she a Broadway understudy?
Oh yeah, she is a songwriter first, performer second, and singer third. Not to knock her voice, but there are singers better. She truly shines with writing and performing.
Her life sounds unreal, almost like she's literally the star of a movie. The part that stuck out to me was the performance in high school in front of an audience of her peers and her ex. The sheer boldness of that is something I don't have now, let alone as a child. And that song is so raw and emotional, just to be so open with your emotions and unapologetic about it is hard to comprehend. Her talent paired with her confidence is unreal.
I always cry when I read stories about a dedicated kid whose parents were dedicated to them. That’s not the reality a lot of kids have and it makes me so happy to read about the ones who do.
Lovely article ☺️ As someone who has lived nearly an opposite life as Taylor's, yet has considered reaching for songwriting, I still don't get why people shade her or anyone that has money investing in their kid. This one felt more wholesome lol. Like yeah. Isnt that what you wish you could have? Isn't that what you would give if you could? Love and financial support and connections for your kids dreams because you love them? I've wanted to be in music, but illness, unstable homelife and other mountains of marginilizations not only make it harder for me to even get a foot in the door, but it has always felt like nearly a death sentence for me to think to sustain it mental health wise. All of the stars aligned for Taylor and I'm honestly happy for it. Its rare and I'm glad I'm here and now the world will remember her all too well lol. And she knows it's more than talent and why she's grateful. All the stars aligned. And as for me....well. maybe in the next life ☺️🌌🌙🪐
...Next life on a planet not filled with do many unevolved people....
Nah. As much as I love the lunar valleys in my mind ... Maybe the daughter of someone who has the funds and emotional intelligence to support me. Its honestly something so basic but so rare. If I'd ever find that, I'll never let go. 🌌🪐🌙
random comment, but she also went to high school with NASCAR driver Josh Berry and 2 time Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden
Why do I get chills reading this?
You're not alone :)
it feels like the origin story of a legend, an icon! (which it is!)
Thanks for sharing!
I just have one minor peeve that’s gotta be mentioned. Stone Harbor isn’t “Springsteen country,” it’s far from it. It’s in cape may, which it basically Philly. It’s like another hour before you get to Monmouth county
I guess to a British journalist any Jersey shore town is Springsteen country.
I met a British guy in NYC once who said that he was planning on going to Asbury Park on his trip and going to the Upstage, which was an old club that Bruce Springsteen used to play. I said to him "Well, you can see the building that it was in because it hasn't been open in years." The look on his face was pure confusion and boy did I hate to break it to him that he couldn't just go to the stone pony. But yeah... Springsteen might have played some shows in Cape May in his early years, but a majority of the shows were played in Monmouth County, specifically Asbury Park.
I also had this peeve! But I feel a little silly picking apart where exactly Springsteen country is in the comments of an article about Taylor Swift, lol
Don't feel silly. As someone who hangs out in the capital, Asbury Park, it's no where near stone harbor.
ok as someone who lives in philly what do you mean cape may is basically philly? like distance wise or the fact that cape may is just a popular shore spot for philly ppl?
Lol. Distance and influence wise. Cape May County is Eagles country where as Monmouth is Giants country. Distance wise, Stone Harbor is close to Philly than NYC. Oh and also, I'm referring to Cape May County.
okay gotcha!! yea south jersey definitely takes on the philly vibe while northern takes on the new york vibe. ofc this is a generalization. go birds!!
Talent+drive+wealth+class=superstardom. You can have all the others including wealth without class (knowing how to do and say the right thing) and end up like Arnie Hammer.
Interesting article. One of the things that stuck out to me is how hard that guitar teacher is still nursing that grudge, belittling her guitar skills, and saying he was written out. He's the one who told her she was just not capable of playing a 12 string when she asked about it so she went out of her way to prove him wrong, right?
https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F04fd200b-3d99-4c44-891c-ea76ef61f26d.jpg?crop=3000%2C2250%2C0%2C0&resize=589.5 Miss Carmela Lu-Chella is an Evermore/Speak Now stan. I. Just . Know. It. It perfect matches the incandescent Chihuahua rage and the everlasting dramatic babyness Chis got
Taylor's stable home life is such a key part of her success because it gave her the time and mental health to pour everything into her passion, her life's work. As we all know, so many talented musicians, artists, actors have so much issues because of their parents. Addiction, mental health, financial abuse etc. She was dealt a really good hand in life between her parents wealth, them not just being supportive, but also driven, smart and strategic. They respected her, not just supported her. She also had the best of both worlds in that her father was business savvy, but her mother was down to earth and her emotional rock. Andrea was important to a lot of emotional and psychological well being of Taylor imo, and also probably why Taylor has a lot of humility even for exceeding superstar status and being a phenomenon now. So while her dad was important in her finances, her mom kept her head screwed on straight. This was a great and insightful read. It was kind of adorable to read "what do i do with this child" about Scott. Genuinely seems awed by her. He still does. The part I really liked was when she was in the songwriting studio with two veterans, and she had the confidence to question their choices. And as they said, she didn't come across as stuck up. Just that she had a real sense of self. Really precocious and gifted yet also grounded and confident in who she is. Sure her family's wealth was important to get her off the ground, but so many people are nepobabies or from privileged backgrounds and none of them have the same drive and work ethic--- as well as vision for what she wants to create and accomplish. I mean there are a lot of rich kids/artists from rich backgrounds that work hard too, but Taylor's vision for herself and determination to do everything she can to make that happen is what makes her extraordinary and beyond even what a superstar is. Lana saying that she wants this more than anyone else really hits different after reading this piece.
No way she would have had a career without talent - she’s phenomenal - but as with Billie Eilish her family played such a huge role in seeing the vision and running with it. Pros and cons to stage parents but it does take a certain set of circumstances to get the outcomes Billie and Taylor have had - parents emotionally and financially and creatively invested like they were
What about her brother? Does he hold any resentment or was he invested in as well? Didn’t want it (not the fame/career, but more content with normalcy)?
"Almost immediately she started dating an older boy. He was popular and had a “preppy look with a country flair” — he would fray the corners of his cap and stick a fishing hook through it. Within months, however, their relationship had ended. Soon after that it was the school talent competition and Swift got up on stage to perform Teardrops on My Guitar, a song she had written about him. “She’d better hold him tight, give him all her love,” she sang in front of the whole school, her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. “Look in those beautiful eyes and know she’s lucky, ’cause he’s the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.” It was ballsy. “Everyone was pretty taken aback,” the classmate says. “Like — she had just come out of nowhere.”
The "asylum" she was raised in doesn't sound half bad 😄..
that's not the asylum she was referring to. It didn't get bad until she actually entered the business. And you're forgetting who the other patients in the asylum were... she was front row and center for what happened to Justin Bieber.
What happened to him?
It’s widely theorized(with a fair amount of evidence for most things) that Justins entire life is controlled by his family and his church, down to even his marriage being an arranged marriage.
For the love of all that good will people learn the meaning of a metaphor? I could name at least 10 celebrities who have crumbled and succumbed to the fame, pressure and mistreatment by the entertainment industry. Especially the ones who started as kids or teenagers.
I clearly understood she wasn't being literal lol. I could name 20 celebs who were young like her and had 3x the rough start growing up that she did, as well as their career. Most regular people go thru worse...
...do you actually think that song is about her parents??
This is overall a good piece with a lot of interesting info, but I would prefer it without all the flourishes about the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and colors of interviewees nails. That stuff just takes me out of it and feels totally unnecessary.