Looking back on 2023 as the year comes to an end, it’s obvious to anybody who’s been paying attention that two concert tours stood out above the rest: Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. Given that those were the leaders in the space, the treks, and the artists behind them, were subject to months and months of comparisons. For her part, Swift didn’t love that.
Swift was named Time‘s 2023 Person Of The Year yesterday (December 6), and in the cover story, she shared her perspective on being compared to Beyoncé: “There were so many stadium tours this summer, but the only ones that were compared were me and Beyoncé. Clearly, it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when those two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion.”
Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) is TIME's 2023 Person of the Year https://t.co/oyjR55azCZ pic.twitter.com/m2qbIbd5TX
— TIME (@TIME) December 6, 2023
She also noted of Bey, “She’s the most precious gem of a person — warm and open and funny. And she’s such a great disruptor of music-industry norms. She taught every artist how to flip the table and challenge archaic business practices.”
Of course, the two have been clear when it comes to how they feel about each other: Beyoncé showed up to the premiere of Swift’s Eras Tour movie in October, and Swift returned the favor at Beyoncé’s own concert film premiere the next month.