Taylor Swift Celebrates “Nicest” Birthday Present In History-Making Billboard Music Awards Win
Taylor Swift is ringing in her birthday weekend with some wins.
The “Shake it Off” artist made history during the 2024 Billboard Music Awards Dec. 12 as the top Billboard Awards Winner in history with 49 total trophies.
During the latest celebration—which aired the day before her birthday Dec. 13—Taylor won 10 awards, including the biggest prize of the night: Top Artist.
Fresh off the Eras Tour, Taylor appeared in a pre-taped message where she thanked Swifties for helping with the achievement.
“Thank you to the fans, because Billboard is counting your stuff. They’re counting what you listen to, the albums that you’re passionate about,” the 35-year-old said in the video where she appeared to hold up an award. “I count these as fan-voted awards because you guys are the ones who care about our albums and come see us in concert. Everything that’s happened with the Eras Tour and The Tortured Poets Department, I just have to say thank you.”
In the message that aired before her birthday, Taylor admitted that the wins were a special way to kick-off the celebrations.
“It means the world to me that you guys have embraced the things I’ve made, and the fact that you’ve cared so much about my music,” she added before kissing the trophy. “This is, like, the nicest early birthday present you could have given me. So, thank you very much. I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
The Billboard Awards were just the start of what is sure to be a big award season for the artist. In fact in February, Taylor may need some more blank space on her trophy case, as she is nominated for six Grammy awards.
In the meantime, Taylor is focused on making more special moments.
On Dec. 12, she visited with young patients at Kansas City’s Children’s Mercy Hospital. During her visit, the “Lavender Haze” singer took pictures with young patients, make TikTok videos and even talked about her boyfriend Travis Kelce, who one patient told her was his favorite player on the Chiefs.
In a video shared to X, formerly Twitter, a young patient tells her he likes Travis now, to which Taylor replied, “Yes, me too. That’s an absolute yes on that one.”
After explaining that his favorite player used to be Travis’ bff Patrick Mahomes, the singer quipped “Good. These are good answers. You are acing this.”
Keep reading for more on Taylor Swift …
1. While Taylor Swift writes all of her own music, she specifically wrote her entire Speak Now album all by herself. No co-writers, just her. The album was released in Oct. 2010, when Taylor was just 20.
2. She grew up on a Christmas tree farm with her family in Pennsylvania. She references her time there on her holiday song of the same name.
3. She’s named after James Taylor. That’s right, from one music legend to another.
4. She’s a former Abercrombie model. Just like fellow stars Channing Tatum, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Roberts and Ashton Kutcher, T.Swift modeled for the company in 2003.
5. She gave Eric Church her first gold record. Back in 2006, she joined Rascal Flatts on their tour after Church was fired. “Actually, she called me after I got fired. I read in the paper that we were fired. She called and said ‘I want you to know that I love what you do,’” Church previously told the Arizona Daily Star. “I joked with her, ‘This is your crowd; they’re going to love you. You’re going to owe me your first gold record.’ I was kidding, but when she got her first gold record she gave me one. It came with a note: ‘Thanks for playing too long and too loud on the Flatts tour. I sincerely appreciate it. Taylor.’”
6. She has doubled-jointed elbows. During her 2016 Vogue 73 questions video, Taylor was asked if she has any “really cool or bizarre” talents. In response, she said, “OK, I’m well aware that this is not a talent, but this is like the only thing that I can do. I have double-jointed elbows.”
7. Her drink of choice? Vodka and Diet Coke, as revealed in that same Vogue video.
8. She turned off her comments on social media to “block some of the noise.” In her essay for Elle, entitled “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30,” Taylor explained, “social media can be great, but it can also inundate your brain with images of what you aren’t, how you’re failing, or who is in a cooler locale than you at any given moment. One thing I do to lessen this weird insecurity laser beam is to turn off comments. Yes, I keep comments off on my posts. That way, I’m showing my friends and fans updates on my life, but I’m training my brain to not need the validation of someone telling me that I look [fire emojis].”
9. She was originally going to name her seventh studio album Daylight before landing on Lover. But since the album was the follow-up to reputation, the singer thought the name Daylight would be a little too on the nose. So, when Taylor wrote the song “Lover,” she decided that would be the name of the album.
10. She’s the youngest solo artist to win Album of the Year. T.Swift was just 20 when she won the top honors in 2010 for her beloved album, Fearless.
11. Taylor made history at the 2024 Grammys, becoming the first female artist to win Album of the Year four times. (For Fearless, 1989, Folklore and Midnights.)
12. The singer’s album, Lover, sold over 1 million pure copies in the United States in its first few months alone, according to Chart Data. This was the first album to reach this milestone in 2019.
13. More historic milestones! At the 2019 American Music Awards, Taylor surpassed Michael Jackson‘s record to become the most awarded artist at the AMAs.
14. As a child, Taylor wanted to be a stockbroker, just like her dad! But she went on to find her true calling in music, later moving from Pennsylvania to Tennessee with her family to kick off her career.
15. She learned to play guitar around the age of 12 after learning a few chords from a technician who was fixing her computer. She then went on to write her first song, “Lucky You.”
16. She’s “obsessed” with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. While talking about her love for Fleabag, Taylor told Entertainment Weekly, “She makes you crack up, shocks you, and breaks your heart all in the span of a few minutes in that show.” Taylor later performed on the SNL episode which the Amazon Prime star hosted!
17. She wrote her own monologue for her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 2009, which doesn’t usually happen with celeb guests. Taylor clearly impressed the team with “Monologue Song (La La La).”
18. She’s been BFFs with Selena Gomez since their respective relationships with the Jonas Brothers. (ICYMI, SelGo even supported her best friend in Nov. 2021 when she returned to SNL to perform the 10-minute version of “All Too Well.”) Back in 2008, Taylor spent time with Joe Jonas, while Gomez dated his younger brother, Nick Jonas. The two quickly became close pals, and have remained tight to this day. Taylor even offered to be the flower girl in Gomez’s wedding to fiance Benny Blanco.
19. Remember the “redhead named Abigail” that Taylor references in “Fifteen,” her beloved song about growing up? Well, she and Taylor are still BFFs, too! Abigail Anderson is her name, and Taylor was a bridesmaid in her wedding in 2017.
20. She’s a godmother, holding that distinction for pal Jaime King‘s son Leo Thames and BFF Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds‘ daughters James, Inez and Betty.
21. Taylor has said that she may never perform her song “Soon You’ll Get Better,” which is about her mother’s cancer battle. During a Q&A session in Aug. 2019, as part of a SiriusXM Town Hall special, she shared, “It was hard to write, it’s hard to sing. It’s hard to listen to for me, but sometimes music is like that.”
22. She doesn’t have X, formerly known as Twitter, on her phone. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor explained, “Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.”
23. She’s never been to therapy. “I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything,” Taylor told Rolling Stone in Sept. 2019. “God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all.”
24. According to an interview, her favorite lyrics off of her Lover album are, “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string scar on my hand/I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover.”
25. Taylor is a billionaire! According to an Oct. 2024 report published by Bloomberg, after breaking records in the industry for over a decade, Taylor’s Eras Tour helped her achieve billionaire status.
26. The 2019 Netflix film, Someone Great, inspired her music, “I cried watching the movie. For about a week, I start waking up from dreams that I’m living out that scenario—that that’s happening to me,” she told Elvis Duran during an interview. “I’d have these lyrics in my head based on the dynamics of these characters and I went in the studio with Jack Antonoff.” The studio session led to the creation of Taylor’s song, “Death By a Thousand Cuts.”
27. She has a special place for her most emotional songs. From “All Too Well” to “The Archer,” the superstar reserves the fifth spot on her albums for a ballad.
28. She’s over hiding from cameras: In fact, she’s proudly supported boyfriend Travis Kelce at NFL games since 2023. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she told Time. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”
