Taylor Swift’s team upset over ‘invasive’ New York Times op-ed

Taylor Swift’s camp is reportedly fuming after the New York Times published an opinion piece earlier this week speculating about the Grammy winner’s sexuality.

“There seems to be no boundary some journalists won’t cross when writing about Taylor, regardless of how invasive, untrue, and inappropriate it is – all under the protective veil of an ‘opinion piece,’” a source told CNN Business Saturday.

“Because of her massive success, in this moment there is a Taylor-shaped hole in people’s ethics,” they added.

The insider emphasised that the Times op-ed — which proposes Swift has been dropping hints about being queer throughout her career — would not “have been allowed to be written about Shawn Mendes or any male artist whose sexuality has been questioned by fans.”

The lengthy op-ed, published Thursday, compiles a laundry list of what the writer labels as “evidence” that allegedly proves the Blank Space singer is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
 

Anna Marks suggests Swift “dropped hairpins,” a slang term for letting others know you are queer, by dying her hair the colours of the bisexual flag in her music video You Need To Calm Down, for instance.

“In isolation, a single dropped hairpin is perhaps meaningless or accidental, but considered together, they’re the unfurling of a ballerina bun after a long performance,” the author writes.

“Those dropped hairpins began to appear in Ms. Swift’s artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America. They suggest to queer people that she is one of us.”

Reps for Swift did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment. We have also reached out to the New York Times for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Swift — who has proclaimed herself as an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community in the past — recently slammed speculation about her sexuality in the October 2023 re-release of her 1989 album.
 

In the prologue for her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album, Swift explained that she predominantly surrounds herself with women in an attempt to dissuade the public from inquiring about her romantic life.

The Lover songstress, who is now happily dating Travis Kelce, explained that she “swore off hanging out with guys” and “decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships.”

Swift said she previously decided to take a step back from “dating, flirting, or anything that could be weaponised against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era.”

“If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalise or sexualise that — right? I would learn later on that people could and people would,” she wrote.

Swift also denied being queer in a September 2019 Vogue interview, telling the magazine at the time, “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male. I didn’t realise until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of.

“It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world.”

Swift’s team has not seemingly come forward only to bash chatter about her sexuality. The singer’s rep also recently spoke out over rumours that the pop star secretly married ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn.

“Enough is enough with these fabricated lies about Taylor from Deuxmoi,” publicist Tree Paine wrote on X in November 2023.

“There was NEVER a marriage or ceremony of ANY kind. This is an insane thing to post. It’s time for you to be held accountable for the pain and trauma you cause with posts like these.”

This story originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission