Taylor Swift – the first woman to win Album of the Year twice for her hit album ‘1989‘, was honoured by being named the first-ever ‘Woman of the Decade’ at the Billboard’s Women In Music Awards this year that was held in Los Angeles, California on December 12th. The prestigious award was presented to Swift by British actress Jameela Jamil who was all-praise for the singer. On receiving the award, Taylor gave one of the best acceptance speeches according to fans, calling out ‘Toxic Male Privilege’ in the music industry.
The Blank Space singer began her 15-minute-long speech by saying “I’ve seen a lot!” and further explained that “As a female in this industry some people will always have slight reservations about you. Whether you deserve to be there, whether your male producer or co-writer is the reason for your success, or whether it was a savvy record label.”
“It wasn’t!” Taylor further said “Now that I’m showing you too many pictures of me with my friends, I can stop doing that too. Now I’m actually a calculated manipulator rather than a smart businesswoman? Okay, I’ll disappear from public view for years! Now I’m being cast as a villain to you? Okay, here’s an album called Reputation and there are lots of snakes everywhere!”
“After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalogue was sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital and the Carlyle Group. Yet to this day, none of these investors have bothered to contact me or my team directly to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art; the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs!” She mentioned the women who supported her during hard times and said that she will never forget it, “like ever” referring to her famous line in the hit song ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together‘, which gained a round of applause from the audience.
Taylor ended with “No matter what else enters the conversation we will always bring it back to music. As for me lately, I have been focusing less on what they say I can’t do and more on doing whatever the hell I want.” which was literally the textbook definition of a mic-dropping moment. Kudos to Swift for standing up for what’s right!