Taylor Swift Talks About Dealing With ‘Slut-Shaming’ At A ‘Very Young Age’!

It didn’t take long for Taylor Swift to learn about sexism in the music biz.

The Lover songstress sat down with Zane Lowe last week for a Beats 1 interview, where she reflected on growing up in the industry and the “unfair” depiction the public tends to assign to female artists when it comes to their relationships.

It’s no secret many have associated the 29-year-old, who released her first album at age 16 in 2006, with her breakup music. But, according to Tay, that’s only due to the extensive media coverage of her dating life — coverage she believes attempted to make her seem like less of an artist.

Related: Selena Gomez Swaps Kim Kardashian Promo & For Taylor Appreciation Post!

She explained: 

“When I was, like, 23 and people were just kind of reducing me to … kind of making slideshows of my dating life and putting people in there that I’d sat next to at a party once and deciding that my songwriting was like a trick rather than a skill and a craft.”

In the singer’s opinion, haters have always tried to mitigate her talent by focusing on her romantic history and slut-shaming her over it.

She continued:

“In a way, it’s figuring out how to completely minimize that skill by taking something that everyone in their darkest, darkest moments loves to do, which is just to slut-shame, you know? That happened to me at a very young age, so that was a bit hard. That was one of the first times I was like, ‘Wow, this is not fair.’”

Thankfully, T.Swift has since developed a new way of looking at herself and the struggles women face in general. 

She shared:

“I can see a headline about a young artist, a young female artist that’s like ‘Another Breakup!’ and it makes me, it sends me […] it sends me into a real sad place because I don’t want that to keep happening, and I don’t think people understand how easy it is to infer that someone who is a female artist or a female in our industry is somehow doing something wrong by wanting love, wanting money, wanting success; women are not allowed to want those things the way men are allowed to want them.”

But things are quickly changing, thanks to movements like #MeToo causing society to re-examine its systemic misogyny.

Tay says she’s thankful for this cultural evolution, but admits she wishes it could have come before she had to deal with all those grueling years of being slut-shamed.

Video: Twitter Is LOVING Taylor’s Tiny Desk Concert Performance!

She noted:

“I think when I was the youngest, it was hard because I didn’t understand why nobody was saying that this was wrong. We have made incredible progress. We’ve made incredible strides and I can look back at those lessons I learned when I was younger and I really truly don’t think I did anything wrong by having a normal dating life in my early 20s.”

Later in the interview, the Grammy winner revealed she and her family were going through some “pretty intense things” at the moment. While speaking on the difficulty of touring, she said: 

“I’ve got some pretty intense things happening with my family right now. I can’t go on a long tour that I can’t go home to my family for. This is where the rubber meets the road. I have to make decisions. I have to have breathing room in my touring schedule.”

Though she didn’t go into detail, Tay’s family issues likely involve her mother Andrea’s cancer battle. As we reported, the star revealed her mother’s illness in a letter to her fans, uring them to remind their parents about the importance of getting screened.

Looking ahead, the superstar wants to keep doing her thing — while making sure not to burn herself (or her fans) out in the process. 

“I want to keep making music I’m proud of, keep making the fans feel the gratitude I have for them, and work in a way I can handle and cultivate a life. You can still make your fans feel loved, and it’s better to not burn out because then you don’t have to take long breaks.”

Good news for Swifties!

Ch-ch-check out a clip of her interview (below) for more.

[Image via WENN]

The post Taylor Swift Talks About Dealing With ‘Slut-Shaming’ At A ‘Very Young Age’! appeared first on Perez Hilton.

from Perez Hilton https://ift.tt/2JvGZ6f