Taylor Swift Reveals Why She Will Sing About Her Boyfriend, But Won't Speak About Him in Interviews

Taylor Swift is on the cover of Rolling Stone‘s brand new issue, and she’s giving a very extensive interview!

Read what the 29-year-old star had to share…

On reconnecting with Katy Perry and why she froze on stage at the 2009 VMAs: “Katy [Perry] and I were talking about our signs…  [Laughs] Of course we were… We were talking about our signs because we had this really, really long talk when we were reconnecting and stuff. And I remember in the long talk, she was like, ‘If we had one glass of white wine right now, we’d both be crying.’ Because we were drinking tea. We’ve had some really good conversations. We were talking about how we’ve had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She’s like, ‘I’m a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.’ So it’s completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, misconception. And oftentimes I’ve had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. Do you know what I mean? And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t know that was how you felt.’ Because it takes me a second. If you watch the video of the 2009 VMAs, I literally freeze. I literally stand there. And that is how I handle any discomfort, any pain. I stand there, I freeze. And then five minutes later, I know how I feel. But in the moment, I’m probably overreacting and I should be nice. Then I process it, and in five minutes, if it’s gone, it’s past, and I’m like, ‘I was overreacting, everything’s fine. I can get through this. I’m glad I didn’t say anything harsh in the moment.’ But when it’s actually something bad that happened, and I feel really, really hurt or upset about it, I only know after the fact. Because I’ve tried so hard to squash it: ‘This probably isn’t what you think.’ That’s something I had to work on.”

On why she will sing about her relationship but not talk about it in interviews: “Singing about something helps you to express it in a way that feels more accurate. You cannot, no matter what, put words in a quote and have it move someone the same way as if you heard those words with the perfect sonic representation of that feeling… There is that weird conflict in being a confessional songwriter and then also having my life, you know, 10 years ago, be catapulted into this strange pop-culture thing.”

On white supremacy, voting for Obama (twice), and her plans for 2020: “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it. Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won. We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House. My first election was voting for him when he made it into office, and then voting to re-elect him. I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didn’t really know that this could happen. But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.”

For more from Taylor, visit RollingStone.com.