Taylor Swift has discussed her long-running friendship with Beyoncé and responded to those who pit the two against each other.
Swift opened up about her relationship with the fellow pop star during a new interview with TIME magazine, which named Swift as its 2023 Person Of The Year.
“She’s the most precious gem of a person — warm and open and funny,” she told the outlet about the ‘Break My Soul’ singer. “And she’s such a great disrupter of music-industry norms. She taught every artist how to flip the table and challenge archaic business practices.”
In the conversation, she went on to address the comparisons that have arisen between her ‘Eras’ tour and Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ tour dates, which have both run throughout 2023 and made headlines for their huge response from fans.
Both have become some of the most successful tours of all time, which has led to fans comparing the profits and live performances to debate which is better. However, according to Swift, she finds it upsetting to be pitted against the singer.
“There were so many stadium tours this summer, but the only ones that were compared were me and Beyoncé,” she explained. “Clearly it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when those two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion.”
Despite the frequent comparisons between their respective careers, both Swift and Beyoncé have refused to join in the debate – instead showing their support for one another by attending the other’s concert film premiere.
At the London premiere of Beyoncé’s Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé on Saturday (December 2), actor Blake Lively also made a nod towards their support of one another, taking to Instagram afterwards to express her admiration for them.
“When I grew up, women were always pit against one another… It took me until adulthood to see that the instinct for women to lift each other up to their highest potential is the norm not the exception,” she wrote.
This week, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé took $21million (£17million) in its opening weekend in North America alone.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour made a $92.8million (£73.1million) in its opening weekend. The film is due to finish its run in cinemas soon, having earned $250million globally, but Swifties will be relieved to learn that the film is being made available on streaming services.
Elsewhere in her interview with TIME, Swift reflected upon her long-running past feud with Kim Kardashian, claiming it impacted her “psychologically” and left her in “a place [she’d] never been before”.
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