Taylor Swift was named the Woman of the Decade during the Billboard Women in Music event held on 12 December (Thursday). The singer is the first recipient ever of the prestigious Woman of the Decade Award.
As part of the 15-minute speech, Taylor looked back at the past decade and discussed her career. She advocated for creatives and spoke her truth by addressing the so-called toxic male privilege and her feud with manager Scooter Braun.
Watch the video of Taylor accepting the award below.
“When this decade began, I was 20 years old, and I had put out my self-titled debut album when I was 16, and then the album that would become my breakthrough album, which was called Fearless. And I saw that there was a world of music and experience beyond country music that I was really curious about. I saw pop stations send my songs, Love Story and You Belong With Me, to No. 1 for the first time,” comments Taylor on her beginnings in the music industry.
“Lately, there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry, and as your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up… This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent,” says Taylor about the situation with her master records and Scooter Braun. “And of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced. I’m fairly certain he knew exactly how I would feel about it… The fact is that private equity enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could buy me. But I’m obviously not going willingly. Yet the most amazing thing was to discover that it would be the women in our industry who would have my back and show me the most vocal support at one of the most difficult times, and I will never, ever forget it. Like, ever.”
Congratulations to Taylor to be honoured with such an accolade!
And by the way, Taylor turns 30 today, so happy birthday as well!