Taylor Swift is undoubtedly the most talked-about woman in the world right now, releasing her new long-awaited studio album The Tortured Poets Department on Friday.
"The Tortured Poets Department," Swift announced to social media as she dropped her highly-anticipated album. "An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure."
Her message continued: "This period of the author's life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that's left behind is the tortured poetry."
The 34-year-old's surprise double album - with the singer releasing an additional 15 songs two hours after the first album dropped, has already broken records.
And as The Tortured Poets Department surpasses 1 billion streams, the first in Spotify history, Swifties have been decoding new songs, from 'Clara Bow' to 'So Long, London' to find Easter eggs and hidden references.
It wasn't the Swifties that made TS headlines today however, but instead the singer's former teachers, with several speaking out about Swift after the release of The Tortured Poets Department. And spoiler alert - they could tell she was destined for great things even then.
"She always was writing poetry, always," explained one of Swift's former teachers, Barbara Kolvek, who taught the singer music at Wyndcroft School, in an interview with CBS Philadelphia. "Even in music class when she shouldn't. I did give her her very first singing solo. 'Fast Talk Freddie,' I believe it was called."
Kolvek continued: "I feel like maybe I gave her a little spark or encouragement to do what she was doing."
And according to the now retired music teacher, Swift even kept in contact with her for a while after leaving school.
Well, that's lovely.
We will continue to update this story.
