Taylor Swift isn't afraid to admit that she's made mistakes when it comes to romance.
The "Bad Blood" singer, who has famously dated Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Conor Kennedy and Harry Styles, opens up about her high profile relationships in the September issue of Vanity Fair.
While T. Swift has talked about her breakups through her lyrics, she hasn't revealed how these rocky relationships affected her image ... until now.
"For the better part of 2012 and 2013, I did not go online, because I didn't like what they were saying about me. And it was so overwhelmingly inaccurate that I knew there was nothing I could do to fight. When the media decides that they don't like you, there's nothing you can do that doesn't seem desperate and irritating to everyone when you try to defend yourself," she tells the mag. "So I just had to go into my little emotional bunker and pretend there weren't bombs going off outside."
After the media called her "boy-crazy" and "dependent on men," T. Swift says she made an effort to change her public persona.
"I wasn't going to give them a reason to say that anymore, and I wasn't going to be seen around any men for years—so that's what I did," she explains. "And what ended up happening was I became happier than I had ever been before. I swore I would never ever get in another relationship if it meant changing who I was, or taking me out of that mode where my friends are everything to me."
The "Blank Space" singer adds that it's "so important" for her boyfriend to get along with her friends. "In every friendship group, you've got one or two girls where you hear people say, 'Oh, she's so different around her boyfriend!' I never wanted to be that girl," she explains. "So that was a huge goal of mine: never ever become someone else for the sake of a relationship."
It seems that Taylor has met her perfect match ... hunky DJ Calvin Harris.
"If you're a people pleaser, like most of us are, you try to adapt to what signals that person is giving off. It's not about changing the fact that you're a people pleaser; it's about finding someone who is not critical," she continues. "That can be the most painful thing, trying to love someone who is critical in their nature."
Swift confirms that "yes," she's definitely done that in the past -- but adds, "usually I don't make the same mistake twice. I make new ones, but I don't usually repeat my old ones."
