Six decades ago, legendary editor Helen Gurley Brown took a stuffy literary magazine and transformed it into an audacious cultural tome. Cosmopolitan has kept evolving since, leading conversations with a sharp, provocative approach that's helped define entire eras of womanhood. One thing that’s remained constant: our iconic cover stories, featuring definitive interviews with the leading stars of the time. Join us in revisiting the most classic ones for a hit of nostalgia and a deep dive into how celebrity has also evolved over the years.
December 2012
Taylor Swift is browsing a small guitar shop in the industrial-turned-hip Edgehill neighborhood of Nashville, her hometown. Hair swept up in a pretty ponytail and wearing a mustard yellow below-the-knee pleated skirt, a crisp white button-down shirt, and sea-foam green cat-eye sunglasses, she looks like she just stepped out of the French film Amélie. She seems relaxed and at home, glancing at the acoustics and making small talk with the bearded, jeans-clad owner about the cool art prints of Elvis and Johnny Cash hanging on the wall. As we’re about to leave, he says, “I just have to ask...are you..?” Taylor smiles and breezily replies, “Yes.” Even in Nashville, where country-music stars are a common sight, he can’t resist asking for a photo, but Taylor politely explains that she’s in the middle of an interview and slips out the door.
It’s late afternoon, and we walk across a stone alleyway to a low-key pizza place, where we sit outside at a green plastic table and Taylor orders a small margherita pie and an iced tea. For two hours, she enjoys relative anonymity with only two middle-aged men stopping briefly at our table—dads wanting autographs for teen daughters. Taylor signs their scraps of paper with a friendly but quick “Here you go!” One passing fan, who looks about 13 years old, glances excitedly at Taylor, who gives her a smile, but the girl’s parents keep her from stopping.
As 2012’s highest paid musical performer and the winner of six Grammys (and countless other music awards), Taylor is nothing short of a teenage icon. But with her growing fame and fortune, her life keeps moving further and further away from the teen audience that made her a star...although she’s trying as hard as she can to remain their patron saint. Ask her what makes her happy, and she immediately rattles off along, G-rated list of favorite things: cats, oceans, hydrangea flowers, arts and crafts, blankets, fireplaces, changing seasons....
She’s not lying—it’s just that at this point you might think running a $57 million brand, taking the red carpet by storm in the latest designer clothes, performing in front of stadiums packed with screaming fans, and getting romantic with a Kennedy might edge out writing notes and people with green eyes (both also on her list) on her thrill meter.
Yet the childlike surprise and excitement that Taylor expresses—so often gently parodied by Kristen Wiig on SNL and Blake Shelton at the ACM Awards—seems completely genuine in person. Taylor talks about her achievements as if they are happening in the context of a wildly improbable dream—one from which she might wake at any moment. And now she’s added being a part of American royalty into her dream life. A longtime fan of the Kennedy clan, Taylor said last year that she was “obsessed with the history of JFK” and had devoured a 900-page book called The Kennedy Women. And in the seemingly enchanted world of Taylor: What Taylor wants, Taylor gets. In a few short years, she’s become a part of the family—even her icon, Ethel, the family matriarch, has remarked that her grandson Conor, 18, would be lucky to marry her. Taylor didn’t discuss her latest boyfriend, but all you have to do is read between the lines and lyrics. There may be a happily ever after on the horizon—certainly, she’s dreamed about it.
Cosmopolitan: Of all the lyrics on your new album, Red, which resonates the most with you at the moment?
Taylor Swift: I have a chalkboard in my house in L.A., and every week, I’ve been writing a new lyric on it from the record just to figure out which ones pop out to me, which seem most important. There’s a song that’s the first track on the record, and it says, “Love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right.” That’s been my whole philosophy on love this whole time anyway.
Cosmopolitan: What about the playing-hard-to-get game?
Taylor Swift: I think a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like? I don’t want to sign up for that.
Cosmopolitan: Are there other moves you won’t tolerate?
Taylor Swift: I can’t deal with someone wanting to take a relationship backward or needing space or cheating on you. It’s a conscious thing, it’s a common-sense thing. If I was in that situation, if I were them, would I be doing this to me? Would I ever do this to them? If the answer is no, then they’re not treating me fairly. I just don’t ever want to end up in a relationship that isn’t fair ever again.
Cosmopolitan: Which song makes you feel most powerful singing?
Taylor Swift: “White Horse” is a song that I’ve always been proud of because it’s about that really horrible feeling of a one-sided relationship that isn’t balanced; it’s one-sided. You clearly love him more than he loves you, and you know it. And it’s a sinking feeling, but it’s also a really intoxicating feeling. And a lot of times girls will end up in these relationships where he’s not giving you anything so you’ll take the crumbs. In my mind, what hurts the most is what they [the guy] didn’t say. It’s when they knew I needed to hear something and they wouldn’t just say it. They knew I needed commitment or loyalty or reassurance, and they wouldn’t give it.
Cosmopolitan: Have you ever had trouble standing up for what you want?
Taylor Swift: I absolutely stand up for myself a hundred percent of the time in meetings where decisions are being discussed about where I’m going, what I stand for, what we’re gonna do next, what date this is gonna happen on, what the album cover is, what’s the first single, what’s the track listing, how many tracks do we have on the record, which producers do I list...all of that. I have no problem standing up for anything I believe in. But any of my friends will tell you: You will never ever, ever, ever see me talk back to anyone, ever. I will let someone say something so mean to me and have no response, because I have six different mean things I can say in my head and I can’t [say out loud]. Because I have this big fear of saying something I’ll regret one day or saying something that will really hurt someone. I’d just rather not raise my voice in a fight. When it comes to my career, I will absolutely stand up for everything that I have to and be brutally honest and be ruthless about it. But not so much in my personal life.
Cosmopolitan: How do you deal with insecurity?
Taylor Swift: There are times when I’m caught up in everything and I have to say to myself, ‘Please feel good; please feel better; everything’s okay; you’re fine; things aren’t falling apart; take a second; get back to a place where you realize that you don’t actually have real problems.’ That happens. But lately, I’m going to say for the past six months, I haven’t had to give myself that pep talk. I love my friends, my family, my life, the direction all this has gone in. You never know when those tables are gonna turn and you’re gonna be really embarrassed by something or humiliated by something or someone’s gonna say something about you. For me, confidence is something that can come crashing down in one second. But right now—I don’t want to jinx it—I’m really happy.
Cosmopolitan: You talk a lot about your friends. Are you a girls’ girl?
Taylor Swift: I am totally a girls’ girl! Guy friends are important too, but my girlfriends have stopped me from making a lot of bad choices. Your girlfriends are objective, and they don’t feel the desperate, passionate feelings [you’re feeling]. They just see that he cheated on you, he lied about it...and you’re still considering this as a viable option? This is still on the table? There’s still a table for this to be on? We are totally those girls who it’s like, “He said he wants me back; do I text him back? Do I not text him back? What do I do? Freeze him out? Yeah, okay, freeze him out.” It’s a committee.
Cosmopolitan: What have you learned about yourself through the ups and downs of dating?
Taylor Swift: I’ve learned when to get out. I’ve never wasted too much time with the wrong person, and that’s one thing I’m proud of. The longer you’re with the wrong person, you could be completely overlooking or not having the chance to meet the right person. And if it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right.
Cosmopolitan: How do you know if something feels right?
Taylor Swift: I think the great defining factor for me is whether I want more. When they drive away, do I wish they would turn around at the end of the street and come back? Or am I fine that they’re going home?
Cosmopolitan: What else do you need in a relationship?
Taylor Swift: I need that unexplainable spark. I know people who have been friends for months and he liked her more than she liked him, then she decided she liked him....That happens and people have amazing relationships that way. I just need to see someone and feel, Oh, no, uh-oh. It’s only happened a few times in my life, but I feel like if I was gonna be with someone forever, it would be because I saw them and thought, Oh, no.
Cosmopolitan: Is a sense of humor important?
Taylor Swift: It doesn’t matter. Happy is important. I want my relationship to live in the light and not in the dark. I’ve had a lot of dark and twisty situations happen, enough to realize that when someone exhibits signs of evoking a dark and twisty relationship and dark and twisty feelings, it’s not interesting to me.
Cosmopolitan: Can you imagine doing anything else other than music?
Taylor Swift: Being a mom full-time, doing everything for my kids, having a bunch of them. One day, I’m sure. But that’s the only other thing that could be as thrilling for me as doing this.
Cosmopolitan: Ever picture your perfect wedding?
Taylor Swift: I want to build a life with someone that’s based on their dreams as well as my dreams. I don’t want it to just be like, “So, I have a scrapbook. In it, I put all the fabric swatches of the wedding dress I’m going to wear. I also have a tuxedo I picked out of a catalog that you’ll wear. Then approximately nine and a half years into our dating, we will be on our second child, and we will send him to preschool here. Don’t worry, I planned it all out for you!” I don’t want him to wonder if it even matters if he’s there.
Cosmopolitan: Does love trump success?
Taylor Swift: I think that the idea of finding another person to share your life with is the most fascinating, beautiful quest you could ever be on in life. And yes, living your dreams is so important too, and a lot of times I’ve put that before everything else. But then you get to a place where the whole time you’re living these dreams, you look beside you to say to someone, “Hey, isn’t this so much fun?!” And if there’s no one there to say it to, what’s the point?
