Taylor Swift Opens Up About Her 'Squad', Kanye West & Answers If 'Bad Blood' Is Really About Katy Perry!

In a cover story for GQ magazine, Taylor Swift opens up about many topics including being judged for her writing, the infamous Kanye West incident at the VMAs & much more!

ON HER GIRL SQUAD: “I honestly think my lack of female friendships in high school and middle school is why my female friendships are so important now. Because I always wanted them. It was just hard for me to have friends.”

ON HER VMA MOMENT WITH KANYE WEST: “When the crowd started booing, I thought they were booing because they also believed I didn’t deserve the award. That’s where the hurt came from. I went backstage and cried, and then I had to stop crying and perform five minutes later. I just told myself I had to perform, and I tried to convince myself that maybe this wasn’t that big of a deal. But that was the most happenstance thing to ever happen in my career. And to now be in a place where Kanye and I respect each other—that’s one of my favorite things that has happened in my career.”

ON BEING JUDGED FOR WRITING LOVE SONGS: “The fact that I’ve never confirmed who those songs are about makes me feel like there is still one card I’m holding. So if you’re going to look at your life and say, ‘I get to play sold-out football stadiums all over the world. I get to call up my favorite artists and ask them to perform with me, and most of the time they say yes. I get to be on the cover of this magazine’ — this is all because I write songs about my own life. So I would feel a little strange complaining about how it’s covered.”

WHO IS ‘BAD BLOOD’ ABOUT? KATY PERRY?: “I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that. I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn’t want to be labeled with this song.”

“I don’t necessarily care who people think it’s about. I just needed to divert them away from the easiest target. Listen to the song. It doesn’t point to any one person or any one situation. But if you’d listened to my previous four albums, you would think this was about a guy who broke my heart. And nothing could be further from the truth. It was important to show that losing friendships can be just as damaging to a person as losing a romantic relationship.”

MEDIA MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT HER: “I went through a few years where I just never went online and never looked at blogs. This was around 2013, when the only thing anyone wanted to write about me was about me and some guy. It was really damaging. You’re thinking, ‘Everybody goes on dates when they’re 22. It’s fine, right?’ Nope. Not when you’re in this situation, and everything you do is blown out of proportion and expanded upon. And all of a sudden, there’s an overriding opinion that doesn’t accurately reflect how you actually live your life. So I didn’t go online for a year and a half. I actually forgot my Instagram password. But now I check in and see what’s happening. In 2015, that stuff does matter. Because if enough people say the same thing about me, it becomes fact in the general public’s mind. So I monitor what people say about me, and if I see a theme, I know what that means. I’ve had it happen twice before. In 2010, it was ‘She’s too young to get all these awards. Look how annoying she is when she wins. Is she even good?’ And then in 2013, it was ‘She just writes songs about guys to get revenge. She’s boy-crazy. She’s a problematic person.’ It will probably be something else again this year.”

Check out Taylor’s full GQ cover story HERE.