Inside Taylor Swift’s history in TIME

As you may have heard…Taylor Swift is TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year.

She appears on three separate covers for our end-of-year issue, each photographed by Inez and Vinoodh, making herfourth,fifth,andsixthappearance on the cover of TIME. Much like Swift’s widely successful Eras Tour, these images showcase different parts of her personality and facets of her career. One also happens to feature Benjamin Button, one of Swift’s cats who also makes a cameo appearance in our story. (Read more about the photographshere.)\xa0

(You can purchase copies of the issuehere.)

Their photographs accompany the first in-depth interview that Swift has given in almost four years. Swift spoke with TIME’s Sam Lansky, who expertly puts this Year of Swift in its deserved context. In their conversation, Swift, a master storyteller, provides a fascinating account of her experience this year and the moments that created it. You’ll also find the backstory on herfriendship with Beyoncé, herEras Tour workout plan, and a sense of what her experience is like when she’s in a football stadium.

It’s been more than 14 years since Swift first appeared in TIME. Then it was in the form of avideo interviewconducted by Rebecca Keegan, when the 19-year-old answered questions from her tour bus on Hollywood Boulevard, brushing off concerns about trading a college experience for touring as a musician. “No matter what path you choose,” she said, “you're going to miss something, and I don’t want to miss this.”

In 2017, she was one of theSilence Breakers named Person of the Yearfor protesting the discrimination, harassment, and assault that so many women have faced. And in 2019, she appeared on the cover of the2019 TIME100, photographed by Pari Dukovic. Over her two-decade career, she hasperformed twice for the TIME100 Galain New York City.

My first—and so far only—Taylor Swift concert was in 2014, when Swift was thesubject of her first TIME cover story. Writer\xa0 Jack Dickey and I joined a small group of fans and executives on a downtown Manhattan rooftop where Swift played songs from her new album1989live for the first time. To the north, the lights atop the Empire State Building danced to the sound of her playing “Out of the Woods,” “Blank Space,” and, naturally, “Welcome to New York.” “When I’m in an optimistic place I hope that my life won’t match anyone else’s life trajectory, either, going forward,” Swift told us then.

Please check out Sam’s reporting and all the great work in TIME that proceeded.

Let me know what you think:Sam@time.com.

Sam