The Seven Husbands of Taylor Swift

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TAYLOR SWIFT
March of 2016 was a nightmare. The Kanye West incident had escalated into an uncontrollable disaster, and I found myself cast as the villain in everyone's story. The hashtag '#TaylorSwiftIsOverParty' trended worldwide, and every magazine seemed eager to dissect me, tear me apart, and magnify every flaw. It felt as though the entire world had turned against me overnight.

I had always tried to please everyone, to be the person people expected me to be. But when the entire world seemed to hate me, I was lost, completely adrift in a sea of anger, exhaustion, and crushing self-doubt. I felt like a wounded animal, cornered and desperate. The weight of it all was unbearable.

Determined to salvage what was left of my reputation, I began to hatch a plan. The seeds of it were planted back at the 2015 BRIT Awards in London, where I first met Adam. He was better known under the alias Calvin Harris. I had been burned by past relationships, so I was cautious, keeping things casual, not looking for anything serious. When Calvin approached me that night, I turned him down. He was persistent but respectful, saying that if I ever changed my mind, I should give him a call.

Fast forward to 2016, and I was desperate. I contacted Calvin, proposing a plan that was as cold and calculated as it was ambitious. I wanted to use our relationship as a publicity stunt, a carefully crafted narrative to shift the public's perception of me. The plan was simple: we would marry, collaborate on music, and let the world believe we were a blissfully happy couple. It was all about image rehabilitation—a way to claw back some control over the story being told about me.

Calvin and I married in the summer of 2016. There were no external romantic relationships; it was my fourth marriage, but unlike the others, this one was purely transactional. We were two people with a mutual understanding, a shared goal.

By late fall, I hadn't released an album. Usually, people expect me to deliver new music regularly, but I wasn't ready. I was still reeling from the backlash, hating myself even more than the public seemed to hate me. Instead of a solo project, I collaborated with Calvin, releasing
This Is What You Came For. It was a huge success, the kind of hit that began to soften the edges of my tarnished reputation. The relationship was working for both of us—while I was slowly salvaging my image, Calvin was enjoying the heightened publicity that came from being associated with me.

But behind closed doors, our marriage was nothing more than an arrangement. We were roommates, not lovers, meticulously maintaining the illusion of a perfect couple in public. The only people who knew the truth were our parents. We couldn't risk telling even our closest friends, for fear that the truth might leak out. We had to commit fully to the act, to the point where even our friends would express envy over how amazing Calvin and I seemed together.

In public, we were flawless. We never argued, always appeared happy around one another, and constantly showered each other with compliments. We treated each other like royalty, playing the part so convincingly that the world believed our every move.

But it was all a facade, a carefully constructed lie designed to manipulate how the world saw me. We played our roles perfectly in public, but once the cameras were off and the doors were closed, the reality was starkly different. We'd come home and retreat to our separate bedrooms, each of us lost in our own thoughts, aware of the vast emptiness that lay between us. The silence in the house was deafening, a constant reminder that what we had wasn't real.

Each night, I'd close the door to my bedroom, sinking into the plush sheets that felt colder than ever. I'd stare at the ceiling, the darkness pressing in, wondering how I'd ended up here—married but utterly alone. The silence in the house felt oppressive, like it was swallowing me whole. I'd hear Calvin moving around in his own room, and sometimes I'd wonder if he felt the same way, or if he was just relieved that our charade had bought him some more time in the spotlight.