Celebrity
Taylor Swift Addresses Comparisons Between Her & Beyoncé’s Tours
“She’s the most precious gem of a person.”
Taylor Swift is TIME Magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — but she’s making sure to acknowledge the women who inspired her along the way. During her all-encompassing interview, her first in nearly four years, the singer lavished praise on Beyoncé, while also addressing how people pitted her landmark Eras Tour and the record-breaking Renaissance World Tour against each other.
“She’s the most precious gem of a person—warm and open and funny,” Swift said, explaining how Bey has influenced her business-wise. “She’s such a great disrupter of music-industry norms,” she said. “She taught every artist how to flip the table and challenge archaic business practices.”
The World Tour Comparisons
However, one thing that Swift had an issue with was how their two stadium tours were constantly compared over the summer as they were both performing around the world.
“There were so many stadium tours this summer, but the only ones that were compared were me and Beyoncé,” she said. “Clearly it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when those two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion.”
How Bey & Tay Support Each Other
The two essentially dismissed unfair comparisons when Beyoncé went to the premiere of the Eras Tour film in October, after securing a similar deal to Swift with AMC for her own concert movie. After posing together, Swift paid tribute to the music icon on Instagram, posting a clip of them throwing popcorn (from an Eras Tour tin) at the screening.
“I’m so glad I’ll never know what my life would’ve been like without @beyonce‘s influence,” she wrote at the time. “The way she’s taught me and every artist out here to break rules and defy industry norms. Her generosity of spirit. Her resilience and versatility. She’s been a guiding light throughout my career and the fact that she showed up tonight was like an actual fairytale.”
Swift returned the favor by attending the London premiere of the Renaissance film on Nov. 30. “Got invited to London by The Queen...,” she wrote on Instagram, captioning another photo of her and Bey together. “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is in theaters now!!”
