Taylor 'Ed Sheeran Looks Down On Me!

The Singer Talks Old Flames and Coping With Fame

- Amber Bramble, Sara Bordon & Penelope Kilby

Anyone who doubts Taylor Swift is in the middle of a reinvention need look no further than the first track from her forthcoming album Reputation. ‘I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now,’ she sings in Look What You Made Me Do. ‘Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead!’

So who is Taylor 2.0? Older and more mature, these days she’s not against the odd racy lyric and is even known to rap – as we saw in her second single Ready for It?. Stepping further out of her comfort zone, she played a sexy cyborg in the music video for Gorgeous.

But there’s still a few Taylor trademarks to be found, with some fans believing they’ve found a few cryptic references to her nemeses – look out, Kanye West and Katy Perry!

The 27-year-old songstress admits she’s had to build a thick skin after more than 10 years in the headlines. ‘Ugh. I’ve had people say really hurtful things about me,’ she confesses, adding, ‘There are a lot of really easy ways to dispel rumours. If they say you are pregnant, all you have to do is continue to not be pregnant and not have a baby.’

A secret baby was just one of the rumours that circulated when Taylor stepped away from the spotlight for a year. But the truth is, she was simply taking a well-deserved break following the world tour for her album 1989 – which has broken numerous records and made Tay the only artist to have three albums sell one million copies in a single week. ‘I decided I was going to live my life a little bit without the pressure on myself to create something,’ she says of her hiatus.