There are entries about the 2009 VMAs, her mom and her relationship with Joe Alwyn.
Taylor Swift just spilled a lot of tea.
In honor of the release of her new album, Lover, Swift put out four deluxe editions of her latest work, each of which feature 30 different pages from her diaries. With passages ranging in time from age 13 to 27, Swift's diaries tell a tale of a girl with growing fame and anxieties becoming a teenager questioning the merits of love, to the full-fledged success she's become.
Keep reading for the biggest bombshells from Swift's personal musings.
Kanye West Feud:
Just five days after the now-infamous moment at the 2009 VMAs, when Kanye West ripped the microphone out of Swift's hand during her acceptance speech to yell about why Beyonce should've won, Swift took to her diary to process her emotions.
"Let's just say, if you had told me that Kanye West would have been the number one focus of my week, the media, and my part in the VMAs, I would've looked at you crossed-eyed. If you had told me that I would win the award I was nominated for, I wouldn't have believed you," a 19-year-old Swift wrote. "And if you had told me that one of the biggest stars in music was going to jump up onstage and announce that he thought I shouldn't have won on live television, I would've said, 'That stuff doesn't really happen in real life.' ... Apparently... it does."
Swift's drama with West didn't end after the VMAs. Though a shaky reconciliation initially seemed to take place, that all changed in 2016, when West released "Famous." In the track, he rapped, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b**ch famous." Over the course of the year, West said he had Swift's permission for the lyric, Swift refuted the claim and then West's wife, Kim Kardashian West, released an audio recording that seemed to back up her husband's story.
"This summer is the apocalypse," Swift, who still denies approving West's lyric, wrote in her diary in August 2016.
Scott Borchetta Thoughts -- Pre-Scooter Braun Deal:
The ownership of Swift's music has been in the news of late because Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta recently sold his label to Scooter Braun, giving him the majority ownership of her master recordings. In a post following the deal, Swift claimed Braun had been "bullying" her "for years," which Braun denies. However, Swift, who has since said she plans to re-record all of her old albums, spoke kindly of Borchetta in her journals.
"I could get a deal right now with [Capitol], but not the deal I would want. So on the other hand, there's Scott Borchetta, who we met w/ at Universal. And you know, I really loved all the stuff he said in the meeting, and he stayed for the whole Bluebird show," Swift wrote in November 2004. "And he's so passionate about this project. I think that's the way we're gonna go, I want to surround myself with passionate people. I'm not sad about Capitol, b/c I don't want to be lost on a big label, like with RCA."
Swift also wrote about how supportive Borchetta was over her album Speak Now and her song "Red."
"Scott and I had lunch the other day. We were talking about the record and I had this epiphany. I didn't talk in interviews about how I felt about much of what has happened in the last two years. I've been silent about so much that I'm saying on this album. It's time to Speak Now. Scott freaked out. He loved it," she wrote in April 2010. "We have title, ladies and gentlemen!"
"He said this song takes it to the next level," she added of "Red" back in 2011. "He lost it over this song."
Romantic Relationships:
The biggest topic of interest for many Swifties is her romantic relationships, something she's never been shy about writing into her music but is notoriously tight-lipped on otherwise. Her romantic nature dates all the way back to 2003, when a 13-year-old Swift daydreamed about her first kiss, something that, according to her song "Fifteen," happened a couple of years later.
"Sometimes I think a lot about what my first kiss is going to be like. It's going to be great and romantic. I'm such a romantic. I just dream about looking into someone's eyes and feeling something I've never felt before, you know?" she wrote. "I just never was able to put a face to my fantacy [sic]. But something tells me that my first kiss is really far away from happening! Because the guys in our school aren't even worth worrying about. They are all in it for one thing and I think you know what that is, too. I guess I'll be okay without a first kiss!!"
Though she had her first kiss within the next few years, in December 2006 she hilariously noted, "Haven't kissed a boy in 209 days," before seeming to develop some cynicism by March of 2009.
"I somehow feel like it's my destiny to roll my eyes at happy couples and resent Valentine's Day. I also feel like I'm the girl before 'the one.' I'm not 'the one.' I'm the girl you think is the one for you, and when it doesn't work out with me, you meet the next girl and realize she IS the one," she wrote. "The one you're gonna stay with. I might get married but I think it's ultimately my fate to light candles and pine away and roll my eyes at happy couples and resent Valentine's Day."
The romantic turmoil continued into 2014, with Swift declaring that "Dating is awful. Love is fiction/a myth. I'm over it all," before writing about why she's so protective of her current beau, Joe Alwyn, back in January 2017.
"I'm essentially based in London, hiding out trying to protect us from the nasty world that just wants to ruin things. We have been together and no one has found out for 3 months now," she wrote of Alwyn. "I want it to stay that way because I don't want anything about this to change or become too complicated or intruded upon. But it's senseless to worry about someday not being happy when I am happy now. OK. Breathe."
Early Success and Fame:
As her romantic life ebbed and flowed, her career was only ever on the rise. From signing a development deal at age 13 in 2003 to getting her first picture requests a few years later, Swift relished every moment of her early success.
"My friend called me and said they heard 'Tim McGraw' on the radio! And I couldn't believe it! I'm so excited," she wrote at age 16. "This is such an unbelievable life. I'm so happy. God I'm so lucky to be doing this. I really just hope things keep going great, and OH MY GOD this is all I've been waiting for!"
Just months later, Swift celebrated again when her self-titled debut sold 61,000 copies in the first week, surpassing her goal by 11,000. Shortly thereafter, her celebrity was rising with an invite to the star-studded Met Gala in 2008.
"When we got out the paps started SCREAMING for me. It was crazy," she marveled in 2008. "... I saw every celebrity ever created. Scarlett Johansson, Gisele, Tom Brady, Beyonce, Jon Bon Jovi (who called me over to talk to him), Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. EVERYONE."
Dealing With Anxiety:
Despite her early success, Swift has always been hard on herself, even admitting in a diary entry from 2003 that she "was SUCH a b****" and "nasty to everybody" because she was worried about an upcoming trip to Nashville.
"I completely psyched myself out and broke down crying. I don't know if I can do this. I want it so bad but I get so scared of what might not happen!" Swift wrote. "When I miss notes, I dive bomb and the whole thing goes crashing down... I'll be fine. I'm young. I'm talented. They'll see it in me. It'll be okay. I've got to hang on. Can't worry. I'm only 13. I'm allowed to make mistakes, right? Oh, this is a lot to handle."
Her nerves continued over the next years, with an entry in 2010 pointing to her stage fright, which she got "every time I walk onto a stage."
"I wish it wasn't so, but I can't blame my mind for speaking out about performances," she wrote. "Criticism of my performances has been the biggest source of pain in my life. I sometimes feel like my college degree is in acting like I'm OK when I'm not."
"Today I had a lot of anxiety about my career because I don't know what to do for the 'Mean' video," she added a year later. "It's such an important song and message and it just isn't coming together. I get so stressed out... My life is so beautiful right now. Every once in a while I have to remind myself to breathe and take in the view."
It all seemed to come to a head in 2013, when Swift compared her intense celebrity to feelings of being hunted.
"This mostly perfect life can feel a lot like being a tiger in a wildlife enclosure. It's pretty in there, but you can't get out," she wrote. "It's peculiar to me that after all these years, I still get so anxious when I see a group of people staring, amassed outside my house, pointing, camera phones up... they could never imagine how much that feels like being hunted."
"And no matter how big my house is or how many albums I sell, I'm still going to be the rabbit," she added. "Because the hunters will always outnumber me. The spectators will stand by, shaking their heads, going 'that pour [sic] girl.' But the point is, they're still watching. Everyone loves a good hunt."
Relationship With Her Mom:
Any Swift knows about the 29-year-old singer's special relationship with her mom, something that she documented on the 2008 song "The Best Day." In one 2007 entry, Swift recalled her mom's reaction to seeing the throwback-filled video for the moving track.
"My mom cried like a baby when we played 'The Best Day' DVD I made her," she wrote.
In an entry from 2009, Swift described a day with her mom that was very similar to the one documented in the song.
"Today was just... wonderful. Today was simple and perfect. Because today was just me and my mom, driving around, looking at antiques in little antique shops, talking about what chandelier should go in the foyer and if this cabinet would look right in the guest room," she wrote. "We stopped for ice cream cones. It started raining hard while we were shopping, so we had to run back to the car, getting soaked and screaming."
"I just kept thinking, when I'm 90 years old, re-living the good old days, I doubt if I'll look back on the number one parties as fondly and as frequently as I'll look back on today," she added.
The Red Era:
Swift wrote again and again about her love for her 2012 album Red. After writing the title track, she recalled how the whole concept came to her.
"As we started recording it, it got more and more awesome, with banjo and this affected vocal part that runs under the chorus... I'd love to name my next album Red," she mused in September 2011. "... It's so different than anything we've done. I can't even tell you how alive and worth while I feel when I'm writing a new song and people like it. It's the most fulfilling feeling, like getting an A+ on your report card."
The night before the 2014 GRAMMYs, where Red was nominated for four awards, she wrote that "Never have I felt so good about our chances. Never have I wanted something as badly as I want to hear them say, "Red is the Album of the Year."
Swift did not win a GRAMMY that year and did not take home another trophy until her 1989 release.
Lyrical Insight:
The diaries are also full of insight into Swift's lyrical process, with early drafts of "All Too Well" and finished versions of songs including "Never Grow Up," "Long Live," "White Horse," "Holy Ground," "This Love" and "Come In With the Rain."
In the first diary she shared never-before-published lyrics from 2003, which she joked "could be worth money someday!!"
In addition, she shared insights into "The Outside" -- which was on her debut album -- revealing that writing it "made me feel better," and more recent tracks like the self-described "summer anthem" that is "22" and "I Knew You Were Trouble."
"It's so edgy and unexpected," Swift wrote of "Trouble" in 2012. "It's almost dub step."
In regards to "Shake It Off," her hit 2014 song, Swift revealed that the chorus for it "just fell out of the sky."
"It ended up being this song about doing your own thing even though haters are gonna hate, and you just have to dance to your own beat," she wrote. "We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheerleader bridge that I absolutely LOVE... I think it'll end up being the first single."
Of interest to Lover fans, though, is a line Swift wrote in her diary all the way back in 2012, which is now a lyric on her latest album's track "The Archer."
"I've been thinking a lot about getting older and relevancy and how all my heroes have all ended up alone," she wrote in her diary in March 2012.
"I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost / The room is on fire, invisible smoke / And all of my heroes die all alone / Help me hold on to you," she sings in "The Archer."
Fun Facts:
Aside from big themes within the diaries' pages, there were plenty of fun tidbits thrown in throughout the pages. Swift became "completely obsessed" with Law and Order in 2006, marveled over how she "shocked the world" by straightening her hair for the 2010 CMT Awards and adopted her first cat in 2011.
"Guess what I'm doing tomorrow? Getting a kitten!!! I've wanted a cat for so long and I'm finally doing it. I love Scottish Folds. I look up internet videos of them," she wrote in October 2011 of her first cat, who now lives with her two other felines, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button. "They're so cute and love humans. So I'm going to get this little kitten tomorrow morning! I'm naming her Meredith. Meredith Gray. Because she's gray."
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