Taylor Swift hits 30 and here’s her birthday gift to you

It's December 13 and somewhere in the world Taylor's blowing out 30 candles and basically winning at life. So how's about a Swift masterclass in how to #bemoreliketaylor

Taylor swift birthday

It's December 13 and somewhere in the world Taylor's blowing out 30 candles and basically winning at life. So how's about a Swift masterclass in how to #bemoreliketaylor

Words by Michelle Davies

1. Happiness is in her genes

No wonder she’s always perky – Taylor spent her formative years living on a Christmas tree farm in Reading, Pennsylvania, and anyone raised around a constant reminder of the jolliest time of year is bound to grow up with a positive outlook. ‘[It’s] why I’m sort of obsessed with Christmas,’ she has said. ‘I wish it was all year round, for the happy feeling it gives people.’

2. She keeps it real

While most pre-graduate students do their damndest to sneak out of lectures, Taylor did the opposite by gatecrashing her best friend’s college classes. Already a household name by the time she was 18 following the release of her first two albums, Taylor craved a normal life and would visit her high school best friend Abigail Lauren at Kansas University to hang out in her dorm room and sneak into classes.

3. Fights for her rights

The music industry was stunned when, in 2014, when Taylor pulled her music from Spotify to protest at the way artists were compensated. It was the first of many stands she’s taken to protect her music, the most recent being her fight to retain the songs from her first five albums after the master tapes were sold by her former label. Taylor will now re-record every track to create new master tapes that will remain under her control. ‘Artists deserve to own their own work,’ she said. Well, there's no arguing with 2019’s best-selling female artist, earning $185m in 12 months.

Taylor swift birthday

Getty Images

4. Bounces back from the bad times 

Remember when Kanye West reignited their feud back in 2016 when he released his track Famous with the lines, ‘I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous’ and claimed she’d given her blessing to it. Taylor denied doing so, but then backing her man, Kim Kardashian released an audio recording of Taylor seemingly approving it and suddenly she was branded a liar. She copped even more flak over her Tom Hiddleston ‘showmance’. ‘Every domino fell,’ is how she described 2016 to the Guardian.

5. She learns from others’ mistakes 

In the same interview Taylor told the Guardian how, as a teenager, she was obsessed with VH1’s Behind The Music series, which chronicled the rise and fall of famous musicians. Taylor would scrutinise each episode pinpointing the moment the star’s career faltered - no wonder she’s had very few missteps in her own.

6. Now she keeps her love life private

Although her new album, Lover, features tracks about her boyfriend of one year, British actor Joe Alwyn, they’re less attention grabbing than the previous tracks she wrote about her exes Harry Styles and Jake Gyllenhaal – and deliberately so. ‘Our relationship isn’t up for discussion,’ she has said. They were first introduced at the Met Gala in 2016 and her friends love him, including Ed Sheeran, who described Joe during a radio interview as ‘really nice. Really, really friendly, [a] really good dude’.

Taylor Swift birthday

Taylor and Harry Styles in happier times (Getty Images)

7. She's embraced her political clout 

For years Taylor kept schtum about her political leanings and in doing so was attacked for not using her profile to greater effect. In 2018, however, she openly endorsed the Democrats in her adopted state of Tennessee for the US mid-term elections as they campaigned against a Republican candidate who said gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry or even be served in stores. Since then she’s donated £85,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, which advocates for LGBTQ Rights. ‘I didn’t realise until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of,’ she said.

8. When all else fails, she lets her music do the talking

When Reputation was released in 2017 Taylor became the first artist in history to have four consecutive albums sell one million copies in their first week of release. It was the perfect validation to bookend her feud with West, which began when he stormed the stage at the 2009 MTV to protest at her winning an award over Beyonce. ‘Never believe anyone who tells you that you don’t deserve want you want,’ said Taylor. You hearing that, Kanye?

Taylor is headlining London's British Summertime Hyde Park 2020 on 11 July. For tickets, see bst-hydepark.com/events/detail/taylor-swift-1

Maria Coole

Maria Coole is a contributing editor on Marie Claire.

Hello Marie Claire readers – you have reached your daily destination. I really hope you’re enjoying our reads and I'm very interested to know what you shared, liked and didn’t like (gah, it happens) by emailing me at: maria.coole@freelance.ti-media.com

But if you fancy finding out who you’re venting to then let me tell you I’m the one on the team that remembers the Spice Girls the first time round. I confidently predicted they’d be a one-hit wonder in the pages of Bliss magazine where I was deputy editor through the second half of the 90s. Having soundly killed any career ambitions in music journalism I’ve managed to keep myself in glow-boosting moisturisers and theatre tickets with a centuries-spanning career in journalism.

Yes, predating t’internet, when 'I’ll fax you' was grunted down a phone with a cord attached to it; when Glastonbury was still accessible by casually going under or over a flimsy fence; when gatecrashing a Foo Fighters aftershow party was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy and tapping Dave Grohl on the shoulder was... oh sorry I like to ramble.

Originally born and bred in that there Welsh seaside town kindly given a new lease of life by Gavin & Stacey, I started out as a junior writer for the Girl Guides and eventually earned enough Brownie points to move on and have a blast as deputy editor of Bliss, New Woman and editor of People newspaper magazine. I was on the launch team of Look in 2007 - where I stuck around as deputy editor and acting editor for almost ten years - shaping a magazine and website at the forefront of body positivity, mental wellbeing and empowering features. More recently, I’ve been Closer executive editor, assistant editor at the Financial Times’s How To Spend It (yes thanks, no probs with that life skill) and now I’m making my inner fangirl’s dream come true by working on this agenda-setting brand, the one that inspired me to become a journalist when Marie Claire launched back in 1988.

I’m a theatre addict, lover of Marvel franchises, most hard cheeses, all types of trees, half-price Itsu, cats, Dr Who, cherry tomatoes, Curly-Wurly, cats, blueberries, cats, boiled eggs, cats, maxi dresses, cats, Adidas shelltops, cats and their kittens. I’ve never knowingly operated any household white goods and once served Ripples as a main course. And finally, always remember what the late great Nora Ephron said, ‘Everything is copy.’