Born in 1989 in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Taylor Swift is country singer turned pop diva and a platinum-selling music superstar. Her grandmother had been a professional opera singer, and Swift soon followed in her footsteps, discovering her love for music as toddler. She began performing in her home town at the age of 10 at fairs and karaoke contests. She started writing songs at the age of 12, and this was the same time she started learning guitar. Taking her inspiration from country artists such as Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks, Swift’s material reflected her experiences of tween alienation. Her talent was evident and so was the support of her parents and so when she was 13, her family sold their Christmas tree farm and moved to Tennesse so that she could devote more time to co-writing songs and trying to land a recording contract in nearby Nashville.
A stellar performance at The Bluebird Café in 2005 in Nashville helped Swift get a contract with Scott Borchetta, then a DreamWorks Records executive. She released her first single, "Tim McGraw," in 2006, which was an immediate success and became a Top 10 hit on the country charts.
Now 16, Swift followed with self-titled debut album in October of that same year, which went on to sell more than 5 million copies. Swift won critical praise for her debut and was certified platinum in 2007, having sold more than one million copies in the US. In 2008, released her next album, Fearless, which hit the top of both the country and pop charts and stayed there for 11 weeks. By the end of the year, Swift had become the highest-selling country artist of the year. Speak Now, delivered almost two years later entered the Guinness Book of World records and consolidated her success, moving Swift into the stratosphere of superstardom. Her popularity only increased over her next three albums -- Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017) -- and found her moving assuredly into a pop realm, showing her fans that she wasn’t just a country artist. With Red she entered the Guinness Book of World Records again for being the first female to have two million selling album openings. And after the critically acclaimed album ‘1989’ she became the first female to have three consecutive albums selling over 1 million copies in their first week. In 2017, she released her "Look What You Made Me Do" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation. The song topped the charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Its music video had over 43.2 million views during its first day on YouTube, breaking the site's record for the most-viewed music video in 24 hours.
Swift has won several of the most prestigious awards as a vocalist, which include 10 ‘Grammy Awards’, 23 ‘Billboard Music Awards’, 11 ‘Country Music Association Awards’, 8 ‘Academy of Country Music Awards’, 19 ‘American Music Awards’, 1 ‘Brit Award’ and an ‘Emmy Award’. In July this year, Swift was ranked at No. 1 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, pulling in pretax income of $185 million over the past year, her biggest earnings total yet. Her estimated pay grew 131%, after clocking in at $80 million in 2018. Swift has become well known for her philanthropy and has generously supported many charities.
Along with the success came some headlines, first in the form of an infamous appearance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards where her acceptance speech was interrupted by Kanye West, who protested that the award should have gone to Beyonce for what he called “one of the best videos of all time.” In 2016 Swift’s feud with West resumed after he released the single “Famous.” The song included a lyric in which Swift was referred to as a “bitch,” and she alleged that it was misogynistic. Swift’s controversies continued as she took part in a widely publicised civil trial in August 2017, after former radio host David Mueller sued the singer, her mother, and a promoter, claiming that Swift had falsely accused him of sexually groping her in 2013 during the taking of a photograph and thus destroyed his career. Swift countersued him for alleged assault and battery, and a jury ruled in her favour in 2017, awarding her $1 in damages as a symbolic gesture. Her romances with famous celebrities - none of which have been hidden from the spotlight - have also gained much media attention, most notably Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhall, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris and Tom Hiddleston.
