Taylor Swift has officially been named TIME Magazine's 2023 Person of the Year. She's the first entertainer to win the honor, which dates back to 1927 and was called 'Man of the Year' or 'Woman of the Year' until 1999.
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The special issue's cover story is the first in-depth interview feature about Swift in almost four years.
In the feature, she gets candid about her relationship with Travis Kelce, discusses her grueling prep for the Eras Tour, and even poses with her famous cat. Swift opens up about the often public ups and downs of her life and career, while settling on 2023 as her finest hour both personally and professionally.
"This is the proudest and happiest I've ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I've ever been,"Swift said.
Then, she seemingly spoke directly to the skeptics who question her decisions and the motives behind them: "We can convolute it all we want, or try to overcomplicate it, but there's only one question: Are you not entertained?"
Swift's candidness in addressing her challenges and triumphs resonates as a testament to her authenticity, a quality that has endeared her to millions worldwide. Her message to the so-called haters underscores a profound understanding of her role as an artist: to captivate, inspire, and, indeed, entertain.
"She's the last monoculture left in our stratified world," wrote Sam Lansky. "It's hard to see history when you're in the middle of it, harder still to distinguish Swift's impact on the culture from her celebrity, which emits so much light it can be blinding. But something unusual is happening with Swift, without a contemporary precedent. She deploys the most efficient medium of the day—the pop song—to tell her story. Yet over time, she has harnessed the power of the media, both traditional and new, to create something wholly unique—a narrative world, in which her music is just one piece in an interactive, shape-shifting story.
"Swift is that story's architect and hero, protagonist and narrator," Lansky continued. "This was the year she perfected her craft—not just with her music, but in her position as the master storyteller of the modern era. The world, in turn, watched, clicked, cried, danced, sang along, swooned, caravanned to stadiums and movie theaters, let her work soundtrack their lives."
This year's Person of the Year special issue goes on sale on December 15.
