"Well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them."
Taylor Swift isn't afraid to call out her critics.
The "Lover" singer recently sat down with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Tracy Smith to discuss how controversy plays a role in her creative process, including tracks in which she's singing directly to the haters. When asked why she chooses to sing to her critics, the 29-year-old songstress shared that she's simply offering a response to the shadiness.
"Well, when they stop coming for me, I will stop singing to them," she replies. "You know, people go on and on about, like, you have to forgive and forget to move past something. No, you don't. You don't have to forgive and you don't have to forget to move on. You can move on without any of those things happening. You just become indifferent, and then you move on."
Swift also made it clear that she's all for mending fences whenever possible, but she never hesitates to defend herself and her work.
"I'm still someone who is the first to apologize when I'm wrong," she admits. "But I think I'm better at standing up for myself when I've been wronged. So, that's something that I think also comes with growing up."
As fans know, Swift has had a number of highly publicized spats, including a decade-long feud with Kanye West that has had plenty of ups and downs, and later his wife, Kim Kardashian West. And, in June, she exchanged words with super-manager Scooter Braun over him purchasing the masters to all of her previous albums when he bought Big Machine Records, her former label, for a reported $300 million.
"I found out when it was online, when it hit the news," Swift told Smith, adding that "nobody" in her inner circle knew about the sale.
"Nobody knew. I knew [Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine] would sell my music, I knew he would do that," she adds. "I couldn't believe who he sold it to because we've had endless conversations about Scooter Braun, and he has 300,000,000 reasons to conveniently forget those conversations."
Swift slammed the deal in a Tumblr post, writing: “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my own work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future.”
Nonetheless, the hit-maker made it clear to CBS Sunday Morning that she's ready to move past controversy, whenever possible.
"Yes, absolutely," she said when asked if she believes in forgiveness. "Like, for people that are important in your life who have added, you know, who have enriched your life and made it better, and also there has been some struggle and some bad stuff, too. But I think that, you know, if something's toxic and it's only ever really been that, what are you gonna do? …Just move on. It's fine."
See more on Swift below.
RELATED CONTENT:
