Nothing Can Keep Taylor Swift From Her Girls

Taylor Swift covers Vanity Fair (Mario Testino/Vanity Fair)
Taylor Swift covers Vanity Fair (Mario Testino/Vanity Fair)

To say Taylor Swift is a busy girl is pretty much the understatement of the century, but the fact that she remains so seemingly grounded makes it that much more mind-blowing. So, just how does she do it? In a nutshell: She keeps her priorities firmly in check and she isn't afraid to change course when she sees them getting out of whack.

For anyone who's ever glanced at her spirited Instagrams (i.e., everyone), it should come as no surprise that topping her to-do list is time with her friends. Swift hangs with an A-list gang o' gals that includes (but is not limited to) Karlie Kloss, Lena Dunham, Selena Gomez, and Gigi Hadid, and while they all have dating lives, Swift insists no man could ever come between any of them.

"We even have girls in our group who have dated the same people," she revealed in the new issue of Vanity Fair. "It’s almost like the sisterhood has such a higher place on the list of priorities for us. It’s so much more important than some guy that it didn’t work out with."

According to the "Blank Space" singer, their closeness stems, at least in part, from pure necessity.

"When you’ve got this group of girls who need each other as much as we need each other, in this climate, when it’s so hard for women to be understood and portrayed the right way in the media… now more than ever we need to be good and kind to each other and not judge each other — and just because you have the same taste in men, we don’t hold that against each other," she confessed. (Case in point: Hadid is dating Swift's ex, Joe Jonas).

Martha Hunt, Kendall Jenner, Serena Williams, Taylor Swift, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid and Cara Delevingne (Dave Hogan/Getty Images)
Martha Hunt, Kendall Jenner, Serena Williams, Taylor Swift, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid and Cara Delevingne (Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

And while that level of commitment to the girls might be unique, Kloss has argued that their relationship works just like anyone else's. "Our friendship is the same as yours and mine. Many of my closest friends are traveling all the time, so it takes constant effort — texting, FaceTiming — on all ends to maintain close relationships," she said in the new issue of Glamour.

For her part, Swift thinks there be more at play than simply their own efforts to connect.

"I'm obsessed with like, being in the same place as my friends and when we all get together — it happens more than you'd think. Like, we're always traveling, we're always in different places, but it's so weird how often we're in the same place at the same time," she revealed. "It's like meant to be. It's like fated that we hang out all the time."

It sounds like her friendships have affected her approach to dating, as well. Swift (who is currently tied to DJ extraordinaire Calvin Harris) said she was "only open to the idea that, if I found someone who would never try to change me, that would be the only person I could fall in love with. Because, you know I was in love with my life." In other words, her girls come first.

But friendship isn't her only passion — Taylor's music is clearly another driving force in her life. When Apple hit a nerve, she sat down and composed a response, an experience that sounds like a sort of spiritual manifesto for the 25-year-old star.

"I wrote the letter at around four a.m.," she revealed. "The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term 'zero percent compensation to rights holders.' Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter."

Even after writing it, however, she wasn't sure if she was going to share it — so she showed it to one trusted person first. "I read it to my mom," she says. "She’s always going to be the one. I just said, 'I’m really scared of this letter, but I had to write it. I might not post it, but I had to say it.'"

She had previously penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal about Spotify's free streaming service and she was concerned "people would say, 'Why won’t she shut up about this?'" she admitted. "My fears were that I would be looked at as someone who just whines and rants about this thing that no one else is really ranting about."

Swift did post the letter, and she got a much more positive response than she was expecting when Apple quickly changed its plan not to compensate artists during the trial period of its new streaming service — a move that the star has praised. "Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about," she said. "And I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the start-up with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine."

Taylor Swift and Kanye West (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
Taylor Swift and Kanye West (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

Speaking of reacting to criticism, Swift has also prioritized handling her own critics and mending fences when needed. Remember way back in 2009, when Kanye West aggressively interrupted her VMA acceptance speech to say she didn't deserve to win (and the entire world was beyond horrified)? It took Swift a while, but with the help of a friend, she got over it. Oh, and that friend was Jay Z.

"I feel like I wasn’t ready to be friends with [West] until I felt like he had some sort of respect for me, and he wasn’t ready to be friends with me until he had some sort of respect for me — so it was the same issue, and we both reached the same place at the same time," Swift explained. "I think it was important, for Jay Z, for Kanye and I to get along. And then Kanye and I both reached a place where he would say really nice things about my music and what I’ve accomplished, and I could ask him how his kid’s doing."

In sum, Swift is a girls' girl who's still open to love (with the right guy), but who lets her passion for music and the creative process drive her and who isn't afraid to re-evaluate a broken relationship from time to time. Also, if you want to know how North West is doing, she probably knows.