Taylor Swift is known for writing about her famous exes, but not all of her songs are about her rocky relationships.
Fan initially speculated that "Bad Blood" might be taking aim at Harry Styles, before she later said it was about a former friend.
"You're in a[n] interview, and the writer says, 'Who is that song about? That sounds like a really intense moment from your life.' And you sit there, and you know you're on good terms with your ex-boyfriend, and you don't want him—or his family—to think you're firing shots at him," she says in the November issue of GQ. "So you say, 'That was about losing a friend.' And that's basically all you say. But then people cryptically tweet about what you meant."
Everyone then assumed it was about Katy Perry. But, Taylor still isn't naming names.
"I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that," she declares. "I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn't want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship."
"I've never named names, so I feel like I still have a sense of power over what people say -- even if that isn't true, and even if I don't have any power over what people say about me," the singer says. "The fact that I've never confirmed who those songs are about makes me feel like there is still one card I'm holding."
The reporter then asked how she feels about being labeled "calculating" by her critics.
"Am I shooting from the hip?" she asks. "Would any of this have happened if I was? … You can be successful for three or four years. Accidents happen. But careers take hard work."
The 25-year-old star's success is no accident. She's learned how to take the public scrutiny and turn it into art.
"You take your creative license and create things that are larger than life. You can write things like I get drunk on jealousy but you'll come back each time you leave, 'cause darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream," she explains. "That is not my approach to relationships. But is it cool to write the narrative of a girl who's crazy but seductive but glamorous but nuts but manipulative? That was the character I felt the media had written for me, and for a long time I felt hurt by it. I took it personally. But as time went by, I realized it was kind of hilarious."
Check out Taylor's full interview in GQ when it hits newsstands on October 26.
