Taylor Swift is ending her year with another accolade: The pop superstar was named Time magazine’s 2023 “Person of the Year,” beating out Barbie and King Charles III.
“While her popularity has grown across the decades, this is the year that Swift, 33, achieved a kind of nuclear fusion: shooting art and commerce together to release an energy of historic force,” the magazine said.
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Taylor Swift looks at the crowd at a concert in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in May 2023.
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Swift performs during the "Folklore" set in Chicago in June 2023.
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Fans sing along in Las Vegas in March 2023.
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Swift performs "Lover" with her band, backup singers and dancers in Nashville, Tennessee, in May 2023.
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Swift performs in Glendale, Arizona, during the opening weekend of "The Eras Tour" in March 2023. Glendale was temporarily re-named Swift City in honor of the concert.
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Swift performs her last show in Los Angeles in August 2023. She was announcing the upcoming release of the album "1989 (Taylor's Version)."
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Glow bracelets light up Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh in June 2023.
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Swift performs "22" in Glendale in March 2023.
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Fans in East Rutherford trade friendship bracelets in the parking lot of MetLife Stadium in May 2023.
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Phoebe Bridgers joins Swift to perform "Nothing New" in Nashville in May 2023. Bridgers was also one of the opening acts.
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Fans wait in line to buy tour merchandise outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, in April 2023.
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Swift gives her hat to a fan in Mexico City in August 2023. Each night of the tour, Swift selects one lucky fan to receive a signed hat at the end of her song "22."
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Swift performs during the "Evermore" section of the show in Sydney in February 2024.
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Fans react outside Lincoln Financial Field as Swift begins her set in Philadelphia in May 2023.
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Swift dances during the "Reputation" set in Atlanta in April 2023.
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Fans show the Ticketmaster queue from the parking lot outside Swift's show in Philadelphia in May 2023.
Ticketmaster apologized to Swift and her fans after a ticketing debacle in November made it difficult to buy tickets when they went on sale.
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Swift smiles at a crowd in Nashville as it gives her a standing ovation for "Champagne Problems" in May 2023.
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Swift opens the "Midnights" set with "Lavender Haze" during a show in Glendale in March 2023.
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Swift sings "Look What You Made Me Do" while dancers in Glendale wear outfits from Swift's previous eras in March 2023.
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Swift performs with the band Haim in Santa Clara, California, in July 2023.
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Swift sings "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" in Paris in May 2024.
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Swift dances across the stage while singing "August" in Atlanta in April 2023.
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Swift performs the "Folklore" set in the rain in Nashville in May 2023. The show was delayed several hours due to storms in the area.
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Fans apply jewels on their way to Swift's show in Foxborough, Massachusetts, in May 2023.
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Swift watches the music video premiere of "I Can See You" in Kansas City, Missouri, in July 2023.
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Fans cheer in East Rutherford in May 2023.
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Sabrina Carpenter joins Swift for the acoustic section of the show in Sydney in February 2024. They performed a mashup of "White Horse" and "Coney Island."
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Swift makes a heart with her hands while performing "Fearless" in Glendale in March 2023.
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Swift and dancers perform during the "Speak Now" set in Sydney in February 2024.
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Swift performs "The 1" in Chicago in June 2023.
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Swift performs in Houston in April 2023.
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Swift and her backup dancers watch the premiere of the "Karma" music video while in East Rutherford in May 2023.
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Swift opens a show in Las Vegas in March 2023.
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Swift wraps her arms around her backup singers, known as The Starlights, during the "Fearless" set in Las Vegas in March 2023.
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Swift announces the release of "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)," a rerecording of her 2010 album, during her show in Nashville in May 2023.
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"Swifties" arrive at a metro station temporarily renamed "Speak Now/Taylor's Station" in Inglewood, California, in August 2023.
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Swift performs the 10-minute version of "All Too Well" in Nashville in May 2023.
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Swift leaves the stage after the "Speak Now" set in Nashville in May 2023.
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Backup dancers join Swift during the "Reputation" set in Cincinnati in June 2023.
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Confetti falls as Swift closes a Nashville show with "Karma" in May 2023.
Time said Swift was selected because she found a way to give people around the world hope in some seriously dark times.
“No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well,” Time said in its profile. “Achieving this feat is something we often chalk up to the alignments of planets and fates, but giving too much credit to the stars ignores her skill and her power.”
The magazine also interviewed Swift, with the artist revealing that “this is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been.”
And yes, she even talked about her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce for the first time publicly. The pair started hanging out after Kelce wore a friendship bracelet on his podcast, which Swift said was “metal as hell” and started to hang out after.
“I’m just there to support Travis,” she said about her appearances at NFL games that have given some of them a ratings boost. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”
Part of Swift’s stunning year was her “Eras Tour,” which grossed about $2.2 billion in North American ticket sales alone, according to research firm QuestionPro. Also on Wednesday, StubHub released its 2023 “Year in Live Experiences” report revealing that the “Eras Tour” was StubHub’s biggest tour in the website’s history.
Swift has dominated not only Super Bowl-sized arenas, but local movie theaters as well.
In its opening weekend, the pop singer’s concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” raked in about $96 million in the box office in the United States and Canada, making it the highest-grossing concert film domestically for an opening weekend, according to AMC.
