by Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY
Taylor Swift doesn't mind singing about romance and
its heartache. But ask her to 'fess up about her beaus, current and
former, and you get bupkis.
ABC's Cynthia McFadden did double duty as she interviewed Swift for Glamour mag and Nightline.
McFadden brought up Swift's Dear John song, saying the singer never identified who it was about, but John Mayer recently told Rolling Stone that it was him.
"How presumptuous! I never disclose who my songs are about," said Swift.
"He said he felt ..."
Swift interrupted McFadden, "No! I don't want to know, I don't want to know."
(Mayer told Rolling Stone that he was "humiliated" by the song, and that Swift's releasing it was "a really lousy thing for her to do.")
Adds
Swift, "I know it wasn't good, so I don't want to know. I put a high
priority on staying happy, and I know what I can't handle."
So, McFadden asked, it would hurt too much for her to hear?
"It's
not that I'm this egomaniac and I don't want to hear anything negative,
because I do keep myself in check," explains Swift. "But I've never
developed that thick a skin. So I just kind of live a life, and I let
all the gossip live somewhere else. If you go too far down the rabbit
hole of what people think about you, it can change everything about who
you are."
Undaunted, McFadden brought up her new relationship with Conor Kennedy.
"I
don't talk about my personal life in great detail. I write about it in
my songs, and I feel like you can share enough about your life in your
music to let people know what you're going through."
Maybe she
shares boyfriend gossip with her close pals? "I'm the kind of girl who
needs to tell her friends everything. I've developed this really
close-knit group of girls. Two of my close friends are bandmates. My
other close friends are Ashley, Claire, Diana, Emma and Selena,"
explains Swift.
Emma is Emma Stone, and Selena is Selena Gomez.
They understand her, which sometimes people don't, says Swift.
"I
think some people think it's just apple pie and sunshine and sprinkles
and ponies. Which is just funny. But I never feel the need to go out and
make some grand statement that I'm dark and twisty and complicated,
because I'm not that either. It's just not as simple as ponies and
rainbows, though I do love ponies and rainbows."
Swift also talks about love in the U.K. edition of Marie Claire,
saying she's a hopeless romantic "even after it explodes into a million
pieces and burns down and you're standing in a pile of the ash of what
it once was thinking, 'Why did I have to meet this person, why did this
have to happen?' But then," she continues, "when you make eye contact
with someone across the room and it clicks and, bam, you're there. In
love again."