Rumour has it that Taylor Swift‘s next rerecording will be “Reputation (Taylor’s Version),” but the difference between now and the pre-“Reputation” 2016 era is that Swift — and her fans — are much better prepared to deal with attacks.
Less than a week after the pop superstar endorsed Kamala Harris for U.S. President, Donald Trump has publicly lashed out at her.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,” the former US President wrote in a Sept. 15 post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Swift, however, is likely unmoved.
At one point in her 2020 documentary, “Miss Americana,” when she first discusses sharing her political opinions, Swift is warned by her publicist that Trump might come after her.
Swift’s immediate response: “F — k that. I don’t care.”
Trump isn’t the only one attacking Swift right now. As Swift sings in “Shake It Off,” “haters gonna hate.”
On Tuesday, after Swift endorsed Harris in an Instagram post she signed “Childless Cat Lady” — a reference to Trump running mate JD Vance’s disparaging comments about women without children — Trump supporter Elon Musk tweeted, “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.”
Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly also ranted about the singer after the endorsement. “F you, Taylor Swift,” she said on her podcast.
Swift is no stranger to such hostility. In fact in 2017 — before she had shared her political views — Swift had been facing so much online vitriol that Instagram let her beta test a feature that would automatically delete comments on her posts containing certain words and phrases. (Soon after, Instagram allowed people to close their comments altogether, something Swift has since taken advantage of.)
Here’s a timeline of Swift and Trump’s “Bad Blood.”
2018: Swift gets political
Swift’s first big public endorsement was for Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper for the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, in the 2018 US midterm elections.
She endorsed the two in an Instagram post in which she also criticized Republican Senate candidate (and later winner) Marsha Blackburn, whose voting record Swift said was “appalling and terrifying.”
Two years later, in “Miss Americana,” it was revealed that during this time, Swift had expressed regret for not speaking out against Trump after the 2016 election and had privately referred to Blackburn as “Trump in a wig.”
Although Swift didn’t refer to Trump in the Instagram post, she alluded to his presidency as a reason for her decision to speak out. “In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” she wrote.
Trump reacted to the endorsements by telling reporters that he liked her music 25 per cent less, to which Swift responded by offering fans a 25 per cent discount on her merchandise.
2020: “We will vote you out”
The climate was tense in May 2020 after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer. As thousands marched the streets across the US and around the world in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” — a comment that was criticized by many as inciting violence.
One of those critics: Swift. In a tweet, she wrote, “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November.”
Later in the year Swift criticized Trump’s “calculated dismantling” of the US Postal Service, a vital resource for wanting to vote by mail amid the then-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president. He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power,” Swift wrote.
Still 2020: Swift endorses Joe Biden for president
In a V magazine cover story, which came out on the night then-VP candidate Harris debated Mike Pence, Swift endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for President.
She shared the magazine cover in a tweet along with an image of “Biden Harris 2020” cookies she had baked. “Gonna be watching and supporting (Kamala Harris) by yelling at the TV a lot,” she wrote.
Harris later thanked Swift for her support and said, “Voting never goes out of style.”
2024: Trump claims that Swift supports him
For almost four years after Trump lost his first re-election bid, there were no public interactions between him and Swift. However, as he geared up for yet another campaign in February, Trump posted on Truth Social that “there’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden” who “didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will.”
He claimed that Swift would not be “disloyal” to him after he “made her so much money” by signing the Music Modernization Act — a bipartisan law that had passed both houses of the US Congress unanimously.
In his post Trump added, “Besides that, I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!”
Later, Trump spoke to Ramin Setoodeh, Variety co-editor-in-chief and author of “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass,” and wondered if Swift’s politics were genuine.
“She is liberal, or is that just an act?” he asked Setoodeh. “She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal.”
He went on to talk about her appearance.
“I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented,” he said. “I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!”
In August, Trump shared AI-generated pictures falsely implying that Swift had endorsed him, including one of the singer dressed as Uncle Sam saying, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.”
Last week: Swift makes it clear she doesn’t support Trump
If, after her six years of political speech, there remained any doubt, on Tuesday Swift removed it by endorsing Harris — once again on a night she was debating her political opponent (this time, Trump). “I think (Harris) is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
Trump responded on Fox News by saying that he was not a Swift fan and that he liked “Mrs. Mahomes much better” referring to Brittany Mahomes — the wife of one of Swift’s boyfriend’s teammates — who had liked pro-Trump comments on Instagram. He added that Swift will “probably pay a price for (endorsing Harris) in the marketplace.”
However, Swift may not have been the one paying the price. On Sunday — five days after the endorsement — Trump posted his “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” post unprompted, suggesting that Swift’s endorsement of his opponent may have worried him.
Soon after, there was an immediate outpouring of support for Swift on social media, with many posting on X, “I love Taylor Swift.”
