Born Dec. 13, 1989, the singer-songwriter has spent her life breaking records, blending genres, setting trends, touring the world and shaping her legacy
Happy birthday, Taylor Swift!
The pop sensation is 34 years old, and in honor of the monster year she just had — and the exciting year ahead of her — we’re looking back at some of her most impressive statistics. The songwriter has won dozens of awards, written hundreds of hit songs, appeared on screens big and small and rocked the world on several sold-out tours.
The “Anti-Hero” singer might favor the numbers 13 and 1989, but she’s got talent from 1 through 34 and beyond. This Dec. 13, take a look at some of Swift’s most impressive milestones for every year of her life.
In May 2022, the pop star donned purple robes to accept an honorary doctoral degree from New York University. Swift also addressed the class of 2022 during their graduation at Yankee Stadium.
Her commencement speech referenced a few of her hits — like the fittingly titled “Welcome to New York” and “22” — and recalled the lessons she’s learned living in the spotlight. As she advised her fellow grads to “learn to live alongside cringe,” the singer poked fun at her past style choices: “I had a phase where, for the entirely of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun,” she shared.
Time profiled Swift solo for its 2023 Person of the Year cover story as the first artist to take the spot. She’d previously appeared the cover in 2017 with other “silence breakers” who spoke out about sexual assault and harassment. The “All Too Well” singer posed alongside strawberry picker Isabel Pascual (who used a pseudonym), lobbyist Adama Iwu, actress Ashley Judd and software engineer Susan Fowler.
The cat-lover is a doting mother to three famous felines. Swift adopted her first Scottish Fold, Meredith Grey, in 2011 and named her after Ellen Pompeo’s Grey’s Anatomy character. A few years later, Meredith got a sister, another Scottish Fold with a TV-inspired moniker, Olivia Benson, for Mariska Hargitay’s character on Law & Order: SVU.
Swift’s third cat joined the family in 2019, blazing his own trail as a Ragdoll breed with a movie character’s name: Benjamin Button.
The trio has made several notable appearances alongside Swift in her music videos, in her Miss Americana documentary film and on social media. Most recently, Benjamin Button can be seen posing around his mom’s neck on her Time Person of the Year cover.
The artist has nabbed a few big-screen roles over the years. In 2010, she played a lovestruck teen alongside then-boyfriend Taylor Lautner in Valentine’s Day. She lent her voice to the animated adaptation of The Lorax in 2012, and in 2014, she joined the likes of Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges and Alexander Skarsgård with a cameo in The Giver (pictured).
Swift tapped into her melodic talents and passion for the feline kind in the 2019 adaptation of the musical Cats. She even co-wrote the original song “Beautiful Ghosts” with Andrew Lloyd Webber for the film. Most recently, she was seen in Amsterdam for a cameo alongside Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie.
Swift has invited some of musics’ biggest names to feature on her tracks, from Ed Sheeran to Bon Iver to Shawn Mendes. She’s also drafted fellow artists to sing on her tracks “From the Vault,” including Hayley Williams, Maren Morris and Phoebe Bridgers, to give new voices to old, unreleased lyrics.
With each re-recording, the lyricist includes previously axed songs intended for her previous eras. When Swift dropped Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), she released a music video for “I Can See You (From the Vault),” which starred her ex-boyfriend Taylor Lautner, Joey King and Presley Cash. (King and Cash both appeared in Swift’s “Mean” music video from the 2010 version of Speak Now.)
All three of her video’s stars joined the Grammy winner on stage during her Eras Tour concert in Kansas City, where they premiered the spy-inspired video.
With Fearless (Taylor’s Version) came “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” a “Vault” song inspired by her short-lived romance with Joe Jonas in 2008. Swift sings the word “Mr.” 28 times, which disproves any theories that she might still be hung up over Jonas’ 27-second phone call breaking up with her way back when.
In fact, there was no “Bad Blood” between Swift and Jonas when she released the song, and his then-wife Sophie Turner shared her appreciation for the track. Later, when Turner and Jonas split in 2023, his two blonde exes struck up a friendship of their own
The National band member has helped Swift pen several of her songs, and he’s even joined her on stadium stages to perform their work in front of thousands. Dessner gushed to PEOPLE about his friendship with the talented songstress in honor of Swift’s 2023 Most Intriguing People of the Year cover story, calling her “one of the greatest songwriters of all time.”
“Taylor is the hardest working artist I’ve ever encountered,” Dessner said of his frequent collaborator. “She is involved in every aspect of writing and producing her songs and has an incredible attention span and focus on detail. And she never really stops writing songs.”
The duo often partners in production with Jack Antonoff, who has written a total of 49 songs with Swift so far.
Swift tried to test her fans’ puzzle-solving skills before revealing the “Vault” songs off 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Keen participants were told to search “Taylor Swift” on Google and solve one of 89 available world puzzles that became available after clicking on a blue vault that showed up. Once 33 million puzzles were completed, the singer vowed to unveil her new song names.
Not for the first time, Swift broke the internet and Google crashed, leaving fans frustrated and confused when the blue vault failed to show. The company even sent out a message, writing, “Swifties, the vault is jammed! But don’t worry, there are no blank spaces inside. We’re in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon.”
