This sassy blonde Nashville, Tennessee celeb has been a massive pop music star for much of the 2010s. Notable for her guitar playing, her clever music videos, her heartbreak lyrics about romance, and even her controversial feuds with fellow pop stars Katy Perry and Kanye West, Taylor Swift has been both celebrated and critiqued by fans and pop music critics alike. Having sold in excess of 50 million records and as much as 150 million singles worldwide, Swift has racked up multiple Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and even an Emmy.
But no matter how successful Swift has become over the last decade, there are certain things that she has long had challenges with – one of which is her height and outer appearance. So why is it that this pop superstar is unhappy with her height? We have all the answers for you here.
Growing Swiftly
Born Taylor Alison Swift, this singer-songwriter grew up in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and would later move to Nashville, Tennessee – the country music capital – to pursue her music career during high school. The daughter of a former stockbroker and a homemaker and mutual fund marketing executive, Swift was lucky to have parents who supported her dreams and literally relocated the family to Hendersonville, Tennessee, after her father was able to get a transfer to Merrill Lynch’s Nashville office.
Before moving to Hendersonville, the Swift family lived on a Christmas tree farm that her father purchased from one of his Merrill Lynch clients. While she was a child, Swift would develop a love of musical theater and begin performing in New York City with the Youth Theatre Academy productions and taking vocal music lessons as well.
As a child, Swift nurtured her love of country music after watching Canadian country songstress Shania Twain and American country superstar Faith Hill. Swift admitted – in relation to Hill: “Everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it.”
Once the family began traveling to Nashville to help Swift pursue her love of music, Swift started developing her music outputs. She began with creating cover versions of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks recordings. She also got the help of Ronnie Cremer, a computer repairman and local musician, who taught her how to play guitar and learn the craft of songwriting.
By 2003, with the help of New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow, Swift also enlisted the help of other singer-songwriters and musicians with whom she began working for two-hour writing sessions each week after she went to school for the day. By age 14, Swift was the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. Though she would later depart the label, she thought it was the best decision at the time because it was a priority for her to be able to write music that truly captured the life experiences of her young teenage years.
By 2006, Swift had released her self-titled debut album, which had sold over 7.75 million copies across the globe and peaked on the charts at number five on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Over the course of the 2000s, Swift would release Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), and Lover (2019) – including her most recent 2020 release Folklore.
Swift’s Height
Despite her fame, Taylor Swift has often opened up her many insecurities, one of which includes her height, especially when wearing high heels. In an interview, Swift admitted that she didn’t like being tall when she was a young child and teenager. She recalled:
“I didn’t like being tall when I would walk up to a group of girls, and they were all a head shorter than me.”
Swift, who hovers somewhere between 5’10” and 5’11”, spent a significant amount of her life being self-conscious about her stature. As she grew up, however, she also became much more confident about her height. In an interview, she claims that:
“When I can put on a pair of four-inch heels and walk into a room and be taller than everybody else, now I look at it as a good thing.”
The “Shake It Off” singer is even okay with her closest friends like Blake Lively lovingly teasing her about her height and wearing heels. Such was the case when Lorde once called her a “beautiful giraffe.” Even Swift’s closest friend Ed Sheeran, who stands two inches shorter than Swift at 5’8”, has teased her in Instagram videos and has tried to appear taller than she is. In response to Sheeran’s teasing, Swift said that he is only teasing her and trying to appear taller than she is – because, in fact, he is not.
While it might be inconceivable, Taylor Swift’s height has not factored into her relationships. Swift has admitted:
“I don’t have any height limits. Like, if a guy is shorter than me, that’s cool, if he sweeps me off my feet, you know? If a guy’s taller than me, that is cool too.”
Taylor’s Dates
Throughout her dating history, Swift has dated many good-looking young men. One of the first that came to the attention of the public was fellow singer-songwriter John Mayer, who is 6’3” tall. Prior to Mayer, Swift had allegedly dated Joe Jonas of boyband fame (The Jonas Brothers).
Unlike Swift, Jonas was shorter than Swift – tallying in at 5’7” tall. While it was only rumored that the two were a couple, it seemed interesting to a number of fans that Swift would date a shorter man. After Jonas, Swift was said to have been dating actor Taylor Lautner – perhaps best known for his role in the Twilight film trilogy. Lautner, who was only as much as two inches shorter than Swift, met Swift while on the set of the 2010 film Valentine’s Day.
The two were not together for long – in fact, they didn’t even make it to the film’s premiere together. Since Lautner, Swift has been romantically linked to a number of dashing Hollywood stars including Glee star Cory Monteith (who was incredibly tall at 6’4”), Jake Gyllenhaal (who was as tall as Swift at 5’11”), Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son Conor Kennedy (6’2”), Harry Styles from the boyband One Direction (who hovered ever so slightly over Swift at 6’0”), DJ Calvin Harris (who is likely the tallest person Swift has ever dated at 6’6”), and actor Tom Hiddleston (who stands tall at 6’2”).
Currently, Swift is romantically connected to Joe Alwyn, who she met while attending the 2016 Met Gala. Her current beau, though not among the tallest of her beaus, is 6’1″. As of July 24, Swift released her eighth studio album, Folklore. The album, which Swift announced would be released less than 24 hours before fans got a hold of it, was written and recorded while Swift was in isolation due to COVID-19.
Aside from collaborations with Bon Iver, Aaron Dessner, and Antonoff, some fans also estimate that Alwyn may have contributed towards the songwriting as well. In the first 24 hours of its release, Folklore sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide. According to Spotify, after tabulating the numbers, Swift broke the record for first-day album streams by a female artist on Spotify.
The numbers tallied in at over 80.6 million streams. While all the details of the album and its release were positive, Swiftie fans are concerned, given the content contained in the lyrics and other details on social media Instagram posts, that Swift and Alwyn may have broken up, though it is likely the case that they have not.
Whether they have or they have not broken up, one thing is clear – that no romantic relationship will make her feel insecure about her height again.
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