Taylor Swift On Glamour: Cover Story

Life couldn’t be better for country cutie Taylor Swift. The 19-year-old singing sensation recently won Album of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards (the youngest person to ever do so), and she can boast that she outsold the likes of Britney, Lil Wayne and Coldplay last year. And now, Taylor is embarking on a 52-city tour with opening act and BFF Kellie Pickler. The girl who grew up on a Christmas tree farm opened up to Glamour about naming names, early career failures, and the perils of dating.

Anyone who’s grooved to tracks like “Forever & Always” knows Taylor isn’t shy about telling it like it is, even if it’s at the expense of a certain Jonas brother. Don’t expect the singer to clam up now that she’s a bona fide celebrity. “I’ve never felt like I needed to tone down being seen as a regular person,” Taylor said. “When I first started doing MySpace, I wrote my bio in the first person. I didn’t want my MySpace page to look like a publicity promo site, so I was the one doing all the commenting, and I was the one putting up pictures and videos. And I’ve approached my whole career like that — I don’t see that ever changing.”

Though it seems Taylor struck success virtually overnight, there were a few bumps on her road to stardom. “I had a record deal that didn’t work out, and it was devastating to me, she told the mag. “When I was 13, I got a meeting with RCA Records, and they said they wanted to sign me to a development deal. [After a year] they decided to shelf me, and I had a choice to make. I could have stayed in development with them, but I figured that if they didn’t believe in me then, they weren’t ever going to believe in me. So I made a tough decision and struck out on my own.”

With a chock-a-block schedule of touring, interviews and meet and greets, the singer’s dating life is, shall we say, unconventional. “It’s always going to be long-distance, even if I date the boy who lives next door to me in Nashville. I’ll be flying to see him and flying him places to see me. It feels like it would involve more scheduling, and I already deal with a lot of scheduling in my life. Of course, if I met somebody who was worth it, I would probably stop thinking that way!”