Taylor Swift appears to address queer rumours in ‘1989’ prologue
Taylor Swift appears to have shut down the years-long queer rumours. (Getty Images)
Taylor Swift appears to have addressed long-running rumours that she is queer and has secretly dated some of her close female friends.
It’s a big day for Swifties around the world, as Swift finally drops the long-awaited 1989 (Taylor’s Version), marking her third album re-release since she decided to regain control of her masters.
On Friday (27 October), fans were treated to brand new recordings of songs like “Blank Space”, “Style”, “Bad Blood”, and “Wildest Dreams”, as well as five bonus “From The Vault” songs: “Say Don’t Go”, “Now That We Don’t Talk”, “Slut!”, “Suburban Legends”, and “Is It Over Now?”
But it’s not unlike Taylor to have extra surprises up her sleeve for her fans.
Ahead of the album release, Swifties unearthed a leaked 1989 (Taylor’s Version) prologue from the Grammy-winning artist, due to appear in vinyl copies of the new album.
In it, Swift reflects on what life was like when she first released the original 1989 album, reflecting on how harshly the media treated her, her “naiveté”, and those dating rumours.
In the prologue, photos of which have been shared on social media, Swift recalls how she had to swear off hanging out with men because of the speculation and “slut-shaming” she was hit with.
Instead, she says, she tried to fix the problem by focusing on herself, her music, and her female friendships.
She writes: “I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalise or sexualise that right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.”
Swifties were quick to pick up on this dig, directed at fans who are convinced that Swift might secretly be queer.
Those fans, who refer to themselves online as “gaylors”, often push theories that Swift had a romantic relationship with model Karlie Kloss, who had been a member of Swift’s famous girl squad.
You might remember the girl squad, who often showed up for Swift at awards shows, parties and even the “Bad Blood” music video.
Other members of the group included Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, the Haim sisters, Hailee Steinfeld, Blake Lively, Cara Delevingne. But Kloss was of particular interest to “gaylors”.
This specific sub-group of Swifties was convinced that Kloss and Swift were an item, focusing on their brief exchanges on the 2013 Victoria’s Secret runway, their Insta pics, and certain Swift songs for evidence of romance.
Swift has shut down these rumours over the years, even tweeting in 2014, “As my 25th birthday present from the media, I’d like for you to stop accusing all my friends of dating me. #thirsty.”
Still the “Gaylors” have relented over the years, convinced that Swift might swing both ways.
But Swift has made it clear once and for all that, there’s nothing of substance behind those theories.
Elsewhere in the prologue, Swift thanks fans who understood and embraced 1989, and spotted her “allyship” for the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’ll always be so incredibly grateful for how you loved and embraced this album,” she writes.
“You, who followed my zig-zag creative choices and cheered on my risks and experiments. You, who heard the wink and humour in “Blank Space” and maybe even empathised with the pain behind the satire.
“You, who saw the seeds of allyship and advocating for equality in “Welcome to New York”. You, who knew that maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood (not starting a tyrannical hot girl cult).
“You, who saw that I reinvent myself for a million reasons, and one of them is to try my very best to entertain you. You, who have had the grace to allow me the freedom to change.”
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