How Taylor Swift Does Money

The lengthy profile of Taylor Swift in Rolling Stone feels like it was written by a team of kittens arguing over the pen. Some of the kittens are very average writers: Swift “plows ahead,” she “purrs,” she is “insanely excited.” Others are more skilled:

“I really like my life right now,” she says. “I have friends around me all the time. I’ve started painting more. I’ve been working out a lot. I’ve started to really take pride in being strong. I love the album I made. I love that I moved to New York. So in terms of being happy, I’ve never been closer to that.” Which is not necessarily the same as being happy. … “There’s my piano,” she says. “Here’s my pool table that always has cat hair on it. That’s my skylight.” She bumps into a doorway. “That’s a door that I walk into.”

Swift, it emerges, has moved to New York City and bought a Tribeca apartment in a premiere apartment building. Well, she bought two, but one’s merely a parenthetical:

Swift bought this apartment about six months ago, for a reported $15 million. (Swift also bought the unit across the hall, for about $5 million; she uses it to house her security team.)

Not sure which is more of a yikes, that she can do that, or that she needs to do that.

She also has a “dream house” in Rhode Island that she bought for $17 million in 2013. “The old summer estate of a Standard Oil heiress, it boasts water views in every room and a seagull Swift named George Washington that swims in her pool.”

What percentage of her income do you think she spends on housing? Just the 30% the experts advise?

Later on, she meets a fan who’s visiting the city for her 17th birthday. “Where are you going for dinner?” Swift asks. A classic NYC question. The out-of-towner admits they were assuming they’d go to Chipotle.

Swift pulls $90 in cash out of her purse and says, “Here, go somewhere nice.”

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