When Taylor Swift Taught a Brilliant Lesson in Emotional Intelligence
Taylor Swift is one of the most recognizable and successful pop stars on the planet. Her global popularity doesn’t just come with legions of fans; there are also haters and even others in the industry who have tried to bring her down. But, Swift hasn’t let that happen.
When people come for her, Swift appears as the bigger person and instead of getting caught up in a war of words, she lets her actions do most of the talking.
Here’s more on how the “Anti-Hero” artist reacts with emotional intelligence. Plus, her rare but brilliant response to critics of her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift responds to ‘Life of a Showgirl’ criticism
It isn’t often that Swift is criticized for her music. Fans and critics alike usually give her high marks as her albums consistently dominate the charts and each track becomes a classic with millions upon millions of streams.
But Swift’s highly anticipated Life of a Showgirl album has people divided with what they think of it. So how did the star respond to the criticism?
Swift knows better than to read into every opinion, but she actually “welcomes the chaos,” telling Apple Music‘s Zane Lowe: “The rule of show business is, if it’s the first week of my album release, and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.
“Our goal is as entertainers is to be a mirror. Oftentimes, an album is a really, really wild way to look at yourself, right? What you’re going through in your life is going to affect whether you relate to the music that I’m putting out at any given moment.”
She added, “What I often love seeing my fans say is, ‘I used to be someone who didn’t like relate to Reputation, and now that I’ve been through some other things in my life, that’s my favorite album. Or, ‘I used to be a Fearless girly, now I’m obsessed with Evermore.”
How Swift lets her actions speak louder than words
As INC. noted, this was the case when Swift endured years of Kanye West’s outbursts and wild allegations after he hijacked her acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs in 2009. The “Bad Blood” hitmaker decided not to feed into the negativity coming from the rapper, which made her look completely unbothered.
And when music manager Scooter Braun got control of her masters for her first six studio albums after he purchased Big Machine Records, Swift’s former label, she recorded all those songs and brilliantly added, “Taylor’s Version.” That move diminished the value of the originals. In 2025, Swift officially reclaimed ownership of the master recordings.
Another example is when sexually explicit deepfake images of Swift invaded social media in 2024. The posts were removed, but after they had already been viewed millions of times. That is obviously a harsh reality for the songstress since just knowing images like that were out there is something no woman ever wants to have happen to them.
Swift could have gone off the rails about that, but she did not. News outlets only reported on what people in “her circle” had to say about the AI photos, not what the singer herself actually said. Her silence spoke volumes as others really felt for her. The White House and Congress even began discussing legislation to put in place so this won’t happen to others.
“We are alarmed by the reports of the … of false images — and it is alarming,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News, adding that Congress should “take legislative action.”
We could all take a lesson from T-Swift’s book.
