How Taylor Swift deals with her fear of violence

Taylor Swift

Fearing for her safety, pop star Taylor Swift, who owns homes in New York, Nashville, Rhode Island and London, sees to it that she keeps a low profile when she shuttles from one city to another.

“I try not to ever really say where I [stay] the most since my addresses are on the internet … Because people tend to show up uninvited—like dudes who think we’re in an imaginary marriage,” she said in a recent interview with CBS Sunday Morning.

Over the years, the singer-songwriter has dealt with a number of obsessive followers—or haters, perhaps— trooping to her properties. “I have had a lot of stalkers show up to the house armed, so we have to think that way,” she pointed out.

Such incidents were enough to force her to carry around army grade bandage dressing for gun shots or stab wounds—should worse comes to worst.

“My fear of violence has continued into my personal life,” she told Elle magazine. “You get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things.”

The 29-year-old music artist has been going through difficult times as of late, with Scott Borchetta reportedly blindsiding her by selling Big Machine—which owns the masters to her first six albums—to Scooter Braun, the one person Taylor doesn’t want getting anywhere near her catalog.

Still, there’s some reason for celebration: Taylor’s new album, “Lover,” has been performing well and getting positive reviews.

But she doesn’t want to think too far ahead, as it only pushes her to a “panic spiral.”

“It freaks me out when I zoom out too far. I have no idea where I’m going to be or even wanna be in 20 years. I [look ahead only as far as] six months, just because I need to plan shows. I don’t know what I’m doing after this album. It’s actually really ungrateful to just assume that you have 20 years,” she told CBS.

“Like, be stoked that you have today,” Taylor added.

Promoting gay rights

Swift lit up the recent MTV annual Video Music Awards, taking home the award for Video of the Year and nodding to her winning song’s celebration of LGTBQ+ rights in accepting her prize.

Swift was among the top award-getters at this year’s edition of the awards show held in Newark, New Jersey, and considered television’s wildest night for its eminently meme-able viral moments.

Swift nabbed the coveted award for her track “You Need to Calm Down” on the heels of releasing her new album “Lover,” which became the year’s top US seller after just two days.

“In this video several points were made,” Swift, wearing an oversized rainbow-colored suit jacket, said to applause.

That it won the fan-chosen award shows that “you want a world where we are all treated equally under the law,” the 29-year-old said, noting the video ended with a petition in support of the Equality Act, which would prevent discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.

Swift, one of the night’s top nominees, also won an award for the top “Video for Good,” thanks to her clip’s antihomophobic message, though when it was released, just in time for Pride Month, the star was accused by some critics of using LGBTQ+ imagery as a marketing technique. —ALLAN POLICARPIO WITH A REPORT FROM AFP