Taylor Swift's re-recorded 2014 album 1989 has dropped just in time for diehard fans to enjoy a weekend filled with nostalgia. The album marks an era when the star transitioned from country to pop muic, and saw her bag a Grammy for Album of the Year. Alongside her impressive spanning career in the limelight, comes trash talk. More specifically, years of misogynistic "slut shaming" surrounding Swift's dating history. Subsequently, Swift took a break from dating for two and a half years – which meant she naturally spent more time with her female friends. From doing so, baseless online rumours were birthed about her sexuality. Now, in a letter written for the re-release of the album, Swift shared her inspiration behind writing 1989, and in doing so, thanked fans for not leaning into claims online. "The voices that had begun to shame me in new ways for dating like a normal young woman? I wanted to silence them," the star wrote. "You see – in the years preceding this, I had become the target of slut shaming – the intensity and relentlessness of which would be criticized and called out if it happened today. The jokes about my amount of boyfriends. The trivialization of my songwriting as if it were a predatory act of boy-crazy psychopath. The media co-signing of this narrative. I had to make it stop because it was starting to really hurt." Swift continued: "It became clear to me that for me there was no such thing as casual dating, or even having a male friend who you platonically hang out with. If I was seen with him, it was assumed I was sleeping with him. And so I swore off hanging out with guys, dating, flirting, or anything that could be weaponized against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era." She went on to say that she assumed she "could fix this" by changing her behaviour. "I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships," she explained. "If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that – right? I would learn later on that people could and people would." Swift went on to thank fans who didn't buy into spiralling rumours online and who "knew that maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood." How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Kourtney Kardashian has slammed and branded "insensitive" to Hawaii fire victims for an Instagram remark. The reality star posted a series of snaps of her recent holiday with her husband, Travis Barker, proudly showing off her baby bump. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star showed off beach pictures and balcony views of the sea. She captioned her social media post: "The ocean calms the fire in me." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Fans have slammed the 44-year-old – who is pregnant with her fourth child – with the post coming just hours after wildfires broke out in nearby Hawaii. So far the death toll has hit 53 with 1,000 missing as locals evacuate the fire-torn island. President, Joe Biden has declared a "major disaster declaration." One fan said: "Maybe not the best time to say 'the ocean calms the fire.' “When people in Hawaii were forced into the ocean because of a fire." Natasa Hall said: "Gross caption." Another Instagram follower added: "Terrible timing for a terrible caption." Tiana Olson said: "Except when you're forced to jump into the ocean. “Because you and your car have been engulfed in flames as you try to escape the fire that's burning down your home. "I know you're just a celebrity and you won't even respond to this. “But my entire town just burnt to the ground, and it's like the people who have the ability to help just pretend not to know what's going on." Someone else added: "So insensitive to the people on Maui." Another follower said: "That’s a really inappropriate caption.” Laurie Somers added: "I wonder if you all have thought about the people of Maui? “You seem very insensitive. "Do we really care about your baby bump when the people of Maui are suffering? Really?" Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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