taylor being gay on main for her interviewers
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This first clip is from the red carpet at the 2012 Academy of Country Music Awards, where Taylor has a super sweet interview with Adrianna Costa from Extra! Taylor and Adrianna overlap each other with compliments at the start, both rushing to call the other pretty. Taylor acts super bashful throughout the interview, and especially humble when complimented. There's a funny moment around the one minute mark, where Taylor mentions her chronic datelessness at awards shows and Adrianna gestures strongly to Taylor and says "[looking] like THIS?!", which Taylor returns. When the clip cuts to the post-ceremony interview, we see Taylor and Adrianna hug politely as the cameras begin to roll. As the interview wraps up, Taylor calls Adrianna "very charming," and Adrianna jokes "should we date?!"
Overall, a sweet little interview but nothing too gobsmackingly gay. Taylor and Adrianna are both complimentary of each other, but it's all friendly, light, and professional.
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This 2014 interview from 2DayFM Sydney is a treat for several reasons, including a very specific phrase that appears in a later-released song. The moment I'm referring to falls around the minute-and-a-half mark, when Sophie Monk (the female interviewer) compliments Taylor and follows it up with a self-deprecating comment. Taylor reassures Sophie by saying "What are you taaalking about? You are so gorgeous it's hard to talk to you." This sounds strikingly similar to the lyrics of Gorgeous from her 2017 album reputation, where she says "You're so gorgeous / I can't say anything to your face / 'Cause look at your face". Of course I'm not insinuating that Gorgeous is about Sophie Monk - there's no indication that she and Taylor have interacted outside of a professional setting - I just think it's worth pointing out that the language Taylor uses in a love song is not so different from how she talks to women.
Later in the interview (around 4-and-a-half minutes), Taylor mentions her policy of not naming her muses and points out that any assumptions on who a song is about, and any 'detective work' people do to prove their theories, is all purely speculation. I feel like this is a really important point! People treat some assumptions about Taylor's muses as more valid than others, especially placing privilege on the heterosexual theories, but they're all speculation. This is also an important reminder that we do not know Taylor!! Her work is often autobiographical in nature, but those little glimpses are not the entirety of her life. We could all be totally wrong about what has happened in her personal life. This point in the interview is also quite reminiscent of this quote from the reputation prologue: "When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test. There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory, because it's 2017 and if you didn't see a picture of it, it couldn't have happened right?"
Side note, peep the excited handflap at 9:10. Sparks joy.
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This interview, also from 2014, is the most iconic and most overtly flirtatious of these three. Taylor and Rachel from SPIN 1038 flirt back and forth a few times in this interview and the way Taylor talks to and looks at Rachael is noticeably different from her normal interview demeanor. Worth noting that this interviewer is from Dublin and has the accent to match - not quite a "London Boy", but Taylor doesn't seem to mind! She playfully repeats some of Rachael's Irish lingo in this clip. I'm a little obsessed with the stare Taylor gives Rachael at the very beginning of the interview
.
3 minutes into the interview, Rachael brings up that her and Taylor are both "single pringle[s]," a fun but corny rhyme that Taylor immediately compliments as "an amazing two words to rhyme together." The two laugh about it for a moment, and we maaayyy see some nerves from Taylor. Rachael asks if Taylor goes "looking for lads," which Taylor denies with a bored expression and her gaze cast towards the rings she's fidgeting with on her hand. When Rachael talks about Tinder, Taylor smoothly replies "You gotta tell me some of those stories later."
It's not an abrupt change, but after this point you can notice Taylor's voice get a bit deeper and richer, which I definitely read as flirtatious.
Just shy of the 7 minute mark, Rachael makes another rhyme in reference to Ed Sheeran - "Ed in a bed" - which Taylor again heavily compliments. She asks "Have you made [a rhyme] for my name yet?", and this is when RayTay is born! In the early 2010s it was not uncommon to refer to Taylor Swift as TayTay, so Rachael's rhyme was to make RayRay for her own name. Taylor says "RayTay. That's an amazing couple name." while looking Rachael up and down.
When the conversation turns to cat talk, Taylorgulps and then asks Rachael if she has cats (as is polite!) and when she says yes,
Taylor nods and repeats back "Yeah. You have a cat." in confirmation. This is sooo subtle and I find it hard to really transcribe the exchange here! It has been common among sapphics for decades
to use questions like "do you have a cat?" as flagging opportunities. Many sapphics have cats, it's a stereotype about lesbians in particular; the "crazy cat lady" mythos is pretty overtly about
women who reject romantic attachments to men.
This is a super popular interview from 2019 with Tracy Smith from CBS Sunday Morning, but there are a couple queer little slips of the tongue that I noticed. Early in the video we see Taylor playing Daylight at her home piano with Tracy next to her. After finishing the song(with tears in her eyes?), she comments that she "[hasn't] serenaded someone in a while." Later in the interview, we see some
behind-the-scenes footage of the fishbowl scene from the Lover music video. While discussing this scene, Taylor uses the phrase "if I were to fall in love."
This really took me by surprise on my rewatch of this interview! They're such small details that hint to Taylor being single around the time of Lover's release, as many gaylors believe she was.
This first clip is from the red carpet at the 2012 Academy of Country Music Awards, where Taylor has a super sweet interview with Adrianna Costa from Extra! Taylor and Adrianna overlap each other with compliments at the start, both rushing to call the other pretty. Taylor acts super bashful throughout the interview, and especially humble when complimented. There's a funny moment around the one minute mark, where Taylor mentions her chronic datelessness at awards shows and Adrianna gestures strongly to Taylor and says "[looking] like THIS?!", which Taylor returns. When the clip cuts to the post-ceremony interview, we see Taylor and Adrianna hug politely as the cameras begin to roll. As the interview wraps up, Taylor calls Adrianna "very charming," and Adrianna jokes "should we date?!"
Overall, a sweet little interview but nothing too gobsmackingly gay. Taylor and Adrianna are both complimentary of each other, but it's all friendly, light, and professional.
This 2014 interview from 2DayFM Sydney is a treat for several reasons, including a very specific phrase that appears in a later-released song. The moment I'm referring to falls around the minute-and-a-half mark, when Sophie Monk (the female interviewer) compliments Taylor and follows it up with a self-deprecating comment. Taylor reassures Sophie by saying "What are you taaalking about? You are so gorgeous it's hard to talk to you." This sounds strikingly similar to the lyrics of Gorgeous from her 2017 album reputation, where she says "You're so gorgeous / I can't say anything to your face / 'Cause look at your face". Of course I'm not insinuating that Gorgeous is about Sophie Monk - there's no indication that she and Taylor have interacted outside of a professional setting - I just think it's worth pointing out that the language Taylor uses in a love song is not so different from how she talks to women.
Later in the interview (around 4-and-a-half minutes), Taylor mentions her policy of not naming her muses and points out that any assumptions on who a song is about, and any 'detective work' people do to prove their theories, is all purely speculation. I feel like this is a really important point! People treat some assumptions about Taylor's muses as more valid than others, especially placing privilege on the heterosexual theories, but they're all speculation. This is also an important reminder that we do not know Taylor!! Her work is often autobiographical in nature, but those little glimpses are not the entirety of her life. We could all be totally wrong about what has happened in her personal life. This point in the interview is also quite reminiscent of this quote from the reputation prologue: "When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test. There will be slideshows of photos backing up each incorrect theory, because it's 2017 and if you didn't see a picture of it, it couldn't have happened right?"
Side note, peep the excited handflap at 9:10. Sparks joy.
This interview, also from 2014, is the most iconic and most overtly flirtatious of these three. Taylor and Rachel from SPIN 1038 flirt back and forth a few times in this interview and the way Taylor talks to and looks at Rachael is noticeably different from her normal interview demeanor. Worth noting that this interviewer is from Dublin and has the accent to match - not quite a "London Boy", but Taylor doesn't seem to mind! She playfully repeats some of Rachael's Irish lingo in this clip. I'm a little obsessed with the stare Taylor gives Rachael at the very beginning of the interview
.3 minutes into the interview, Rachael brings up that her and Taylor are both "single pringle[s]," a fun but corny rhyme that Taylor immediately compliments as "an amazing two words to rhyme together." The two laugh about it for a moment, and we maaayyy see some nerves from Taylor. Rachael asks if Taylor goes "looking for lads," which Taylor denies with a bored expression and her gaze cast towards the rings she's fidgeting with on her hand. When Rachael talks about Tinder, Taylor smoothly replies "You gotta tell me some of those stories later."
It's not an abrupt change, but after this point you can notice Taylor's voice get a bit deeper and richer, which I definitely read as flirtatious.
Just shy of the 7 minute mark, Rachael makes another rhyme in reference to Ed Sheeran - "Ed in a bed" - which Taylor again heavily compliments. She asks "Have you made [a rhyme] for my name yet?", and this is when RayTay is born! In the early 2010s it was not uncommon to refer to Taylor Swift as TayTay, so Rachael's rhyme was to make RayRay for her own name. Taylor says "RayTay. That's an amazing couple name." while looking Rachael up and down.
When the conversation turns to cat talk, Taylor
not flirting, but a little gaylor interview bonus...
This is a super popular interview from 2019 with Tracy Smith from CBS Sunday Morning, but there are a couple queer little slips of the tongue that I noticed. Early in the video we see Taylor playing Daylight at her home piano with Tracy next to her. After finishing the song
This really took me by surprise on my rewatch of this interview! They're such small details that hint to Taylor being single around the time of Lover's release, as many gaylors believe she was.