Taylor Swift Reveals She's Felt Like People 'Lean in with ... Hunger' When She's Felt 'Humiliated'
Taylor Swift is giving an inside look at her life — and growing comfortable owning her emotions and speaking up.
The singer, 30, unveiled her documentary Miss Americana Thursday night at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival to resounding acclaim by festival-goers who were the first to see the film, directed by Lana Wilson.
Swift appeared at the end of the film for a Q&A with Wilson as she answered inquiries about the making of the Netflix doc, thanking Wilson for ensuring she felt safe while filming.
“In the public eye, when I get sad or upset or humiliated or angry or go through a really horrible time, I feel like people lean in with this hunger and you never did that to me,” Swift said to Wilson while in the packed Eccles Theatre in Park City, Utah. “That was what made me feel okay about feeling sadness, anger, humiliation around you because I felt like when I got sad, you did, too.”
Swift added, “And so, it made all of that all right, it didn’t make me feel like, ‘Oh, she feels like she’s got a really good part for her movie now,’ and I really want to thank you for that.”
Wilson also spoke about their relationship while making the film, revealing there “weren’t really ground rules” for what she could and couldn’t capture of Swift.
“You were very open from the beginning, I think you see that in the film,” Wilson told Swift. “It was just a matter of when we could get together.”
The director continued, “For me, my favorite parts were probably filming in the studio, getting to see your creative process. It’s a really creative process and I know no one had really filmed you in the studio before. Similarly, the interviews when we first met, you hadn’t done press in almost three years, so I remember it was a big deal to do that first interview. I think we had an easy rapport and talked a long time about anything.”
Miss Americana offers an inside look at moments in Swift’s career that defined her, including the public battle for the rights to her music catalog, her experiences during a 2017 groping trial, and the infamous Kanye West interruption at the 2009 VMAs.
The singer revealed she struggled with an eating disorder, saying paparazzi photos were a “trigger” for her.
In the film, Swift said when she sees “a picture of me where I looked like my tummy was too big, or … someone said that I looked pregnant … and that’ll just trigger me to just starve a little bit, just stop eating.”
Her eating disorder grew increasingly concerning after it began affecting her performance on tour.
“I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of the show, or in the middle of it,” Swift said in the documentary. “Now, I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel [enervated].”
The Lover singer said she’s grown since then, telling herself “we don’t do that anymore” when it comes to critiquing her body in paparazzi photos, adding she’s reconciled “the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.”
Miss Americana is in theaters and available for streaming on Netflix on Jan. 31.
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go to NationalEatingDisorders.org.
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