Taylor Swift Talked Making Mistakes, Equal Pay, and Her Next Single in Her Teen Choice Awards Speech
"Please be kind to yourselves and stand up for yourself," she told her fans.
Taylor Swift accepted the Teen Choice Awards' first ever Icon Award Sunday night, in the form of a surfboard emblazoned with photos of her beloved cats (Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button) as USA Today reports. She seized the opportunity to call for equal pay for the U.S. women's soccer team, announce a new single, and potentially refer to the Kim Kardashian incident of 2016—all in one acceptance speech. That's efficiency, friends!
USWNT co-captain Alex Morgan presented Taylor with the Icon Award, commending her for inspiring "others through her actions." In return, Taylor lent her voice to the soccer team's struggle for equal pay, saying, "Please, please, please support (Morgan) and her teammates, because this isn't over yet."
"It's not resolved. Get online, talk about it, let people know how you feel about it, because what happened to them is unfair, it's happening everywhere, and they are heroes and icons for standing up," Taylor said.
She went on to tell her fans not to fear messing up, saying, "I think one thing I wish I would've known as a teen is that mistakes are inevitable." Taylor continued, "Sometimes you think if you try hard enough to make every decision perfectly, you think you can possibly, like, ace life, and never make any mistakes."
"But it's normal to make mistakes, and I just want you to know that if you're out there, and you're being really hard on yourself right now for something that's happened, or messing up, or feeling embarrassed, it's normal. That's what's going to happen to you in life," she said. "No one gets through unscathed. We're all gonna have a few scratches on us. We're living in an insane time, please be kind to yourselves and stand up for yourself, please."
While Taylor was offering general life advice to her young fans, it's possible to hear in her speech echoes of her recent interview with Vogue, in which she spoke about being "canceled" by the internet after Kim K's Snapchats appeared to show her condoning Kanye West's "Famous" lyrics. (Taylor maintained she specifically objected to the line, "I made that bitch famous.")
She told the magazine, "A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience," adding, "When you’re going through loss or embarrassment or shame, it’s a grieving process with so many micro emotions in a day."
Oh, and about that new single: "Lover" will be released this Friday, August 16, a week before the album of the same name drops. Clear your schedules, Swifties!
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