Oh, so THAT'S how Taylor and Kanye became friends...
Remember when Taylor and Kanye were like this?
But then, they were like this:
Well now we finally know how that glorious friendship blossomed.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Taylor herself opened up about how she and Kanye actually became friends, and, like most things in this modern world, it involved Jay Z. She told the magazine:
"I feel like I wasn’t ready to be friends with him until I felt like he had some sort of respect for me, and he wasn’t ready to be friends with me until he had some sort of respect for me — so it was the same issue, and we both reached the same place at the same time. I became friends with Jay Z, and I think it was important, for Jay Z, for Kanye and I to get along. It started with both of us really liking Jay and wanting him to be happy. And then Kanye and I both reached a place where he would say really nice things about my music and what I’ve accomplished, and I could ask him how his kid’s doing.”
We should send Jay Z in to fix all conflicts in the world, guys.
Taylor also talked to the magazine about her pretty big (read: insanely massive) year, and she had plenty to say about it.
On how dating fits into her new life
“That was the way that I decided to go on with my life. Not looking for anything, not necessarily being open to anything, and only being open to the idea that, if I found someone who would never try to change me, that would be the only person I could fall in love with. Because, you know, I was in love with my life.”
On the Apple Music letter
“I wrote the letter at around four A.M. The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term ‘zero percent compensation to rights holders.’ Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter. ... Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about. And I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the start-up with no cash flow (Spotify) reacted to criticism like a corporate machine.”
On her #Squad
"It’s almost like the sisterhood has such a higher place on the list of priorities for us. It’s so much more important than some guy that it didn’t work out with. When you’ve got this group of girls who need each other as much as we need each other, in this climate, when it’s so hard for women to be understood and portrayed the right way in the media … now more than ever we need to be good and kind to each other and not judge each other—and just because you have the same taste in men, we don’t hold that against each other.”
On who she wants to emulate in her career
“If you look at Oprah, she’s made so many people happy over the years. She’s made so much money, but she’s given so much of it away. Same thing with Angelina Jolie. She’s been so productive, but she’s used that position to better other people’s lives, and I think that’s where I’d want to be. I want to leave a trail of people behind me who had gotten better opportunities or felt better about themselves because of me or smiled because of me.”
Aw, Taylor.