Taylor Swift on White Supremacists Thinking She Supported Them: ‘That’s Disgusting’

Photo credit: Andrew H. Walker - Getty Images
Photo credit: Andrew H. Walker - Getty Images

From ELLE

In a new Rolling Stone interview, Taylor Swift addressed all the major headlines about her life in the past three years, from her and Kanye West’s drama to why she just recently became politically active. And finally, finally, she discussed the “disgusting” fact that white supremacists thought she was part of her team because she didn’t speak out against them in 2016.

Her silence was partly because she literally didn’t know it was happening; she was purposefully staying offline prioritizing her own mental health.

Rolling Stone mentioned that until she endorsed Democratic candidates, many right wingers “and worse” assumed she was on their side.

“I don’t think they do anymore,” Swift started. “Yeah, that was jarring, and I didn’t hear about that until after it had happened. Because at this point, I, for a very long time, I didn’t have the internet on my phone, and my team and my family were really worried about me because I was not in a good place. And there was a lot of stuff that they just dealt with without telling me about it. Which is the only time that’s ever happened in my career. I’m always in the pilot seat, trying to fly the plane that is my career in exactly the direction I want to take it. But there was a time when I just had to throw my hands up and say, ‘Guys, I can’t. I can’t do this. I need you to just take over for me and I’m just going to disappear.’”

Swift was asked if she was referring to when a white supremacist site suggested she sympathized with them. That’s when Swift vehemently spoke out against them.

“I didn’t even see that, but, like, if that happened, that’s just disgusting,” she started. “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it. Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won. We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House. My first election was voting for him when he made it into office, and then voting to re-elect him. I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didn’t really know that this could happen. But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary [Clinton]’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.”

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