Taylor Swift's former peer claims ‘most people hated her' at high school

Taylor Swift is undeniably the woman of the hour.

The 34-year-old's new album The Tortured Poets Department has not only broken the record for Spotify's most-streamed in a single day, but she is also now officially the most-streamed artist in the world.

And yet, haters are, inevitably, gonna hate – as the queen of pop herself would say. And, apparently, there were quite a few of them in her former home town.

One woman, who says she went to the same high school as the pop sensation, claims that the most successful singer in the world was, in fact, not so popular among her peers.

In a clip posted a month before the release of Tay’s 2022 album Midnights, TikToker Jessica McLane said she and the multi-award-winning artist both attended Hendersonville High School in 2006.

That was the year the 'Shake it Off' singer got “really big”, McLane told viewers, revealing: “When she first started becoming super successful, most people hated her.”

The TikToker then clarified that these alleged haters weren’t “random people on the internet”, but the then teenager’s classmates.

“She was literally 16, 17, leaving high school to pursue a career that people were telling her that she could never have,” McLane continued, explaining that the same year – when hit single ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ was released – Swift dropped out of Hendersonville High to be homeschooled.

“Also, the guys she was writing these songs about, they were still in school. They were still there. And now they have a hit song about them talking about what a s****y boyfriend they are,” she went on.

“There were a lot of rumours going around about how she got her start in the first place and, I don’t really know,” but, she added: “The fact remains that there were not a lot of people in high school who had nice things to say about her.”

Whilst admitting that she hadn’t known Swift personally, McLane said it was clear that “everything [she] does is intentional”, and she had experienced the fruits of that.

Three years after Swift’s departure from the school, when McLane herself was a senior, the ‘Love Story’ singer invited the entire senior class to the 2009 Country Music Association Awards.

McLane gushed: “When I found out that we were going, we were all really excited. I mean, who gets invited by Taylor Swift to the CMAs? That’s really cool.

But, she added: “It was very random. Like, we didn’t know why Taylor Swift was inviting us to the CMAs.”

However, the TikToker had a theory: “As we all know, 2009 is the year that she killed the game – entertainer of the year, female vocalist of the year, album of the year, music video of the year…”

She then posited that Swift had planned the invitation three years in advance, wanting to flaunt her success to her former detractors at the height of her fame.

“Y’all, she invited us to the CMAs to say f*** you,” McLane said. “And we deserved it.”

“So, to Taylor: touché, that was a good one.”

McLane’s video racked up more than 6.5 million views and 6,500 comments in just six weeks, prompting a string of follow-ups – some of which saw her offering photographic and documentary proof that the pair had, indeed, been schoolmates.

She acknowledged that “jealousy was definitely a thing” when it came to people’s beef with the superstar, explaining that, owing to the town’s proximity to Nashville, everyone knew someone in the music industry or someone trying to break into the industry.

And yet, while others had to content themselves with performing in local coffee shops, Swift actually made it big.

“It’s not that these people weren’t talented it’s just that most people don’t make it,” she said.

“And I won’t lie, back then, [Swift] didn’t have as good control over her voice as she does now, so there were a lot of people in high school who were vocally a lot better.”

But, she conceded, they simply “weren’t Taylor Swift”.

No 'Bad Blood' though, right, guys?

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