As I’ve often said, Taylor Swift’s business acumen has always been more interesting to me than her Easter eggs. She is a great songwriter, but she’s also a great businesswoman. And she’s making headlines this week for a great business decision. 

 

As we’ve heard, many celebrities were caught up in the FTX mess. But we know now that Taylor was one of the few, if not the only, who managed to avoid it. Per NY Mag:

“According to the attorney Adam Moskowitz, who is leading a class-action lawsuit against FTX and its celebrity spokespeople, Swift was considering an endorsement deal in the fall of 2021. In an appearance on The Scoop podcast on Tuesday, Moskowitz said that during the discovery process, the singer “actually asked: ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’”

While Moskowitz didn’t say if it was the singer or her lawyers who posed the question, it was the right hunch. In its complaint against FTX last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission stated that the FTX-issued cryptocurrency, as a security, was not properly registered. To recap, the coin was crucial to FTX’s fall. In November 2022, CoinDesk reported that FTT made up a huge percentage of the balance sheet of Alameda, the hedge fund closely linked to FTX, leading to a collapse in its value that exposed the whole operation as an alleged fraud.”

 

Taylor and her team did their due diligence. Because, as we know, Taylor almost always does her homework. Some people are pointing out that her father, Scott, worked in investments and may have guided her. Well, yeah, sure, and that means she paid attention. And has been paying attention. That would be the upside of the side-eye that has come her way where her origin story is concerned as Scott invested in Big Machine Records, the label where she started her career. While that may have given her an advantage in an obvious way, having that kind of influence in her life would have prepared her for the business part of being a popstar. Being fully present at the meetings, understanding everything about the complicated financial details outside of the creative parts of the jobs, staying on top of the percentages,  the accounts, the partnerships, the deals. We hear all the time about celebrities – from actors to singers to athletes – who are taken advantage of by managers and agents because they haven’t been involved with the business admin side of their fame. 

 

It’s especially true of young stars who get into the business early, like Taylor, and are often completely unaware of what’s happening with their assets until it’s too late. That has never been the case with Taylor. Her family protected her by preparing her. And that paid off with FTX. And while for sure it’s true that there’s privilege in that, obviously, because she was raised in a family environment with that kind of background where so many other young stars don’t have that family foundation. But it can also be true that she didn’t squander her advantages. 

In other Taylor news, she was seen out for dinner with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds last night. Blake and Ryan were close with Taylor and Joe Alwyn before they broke up. But Ryan, along with other celebrities who are close to Taylor, unfollowed Joe Alwyn on social media. 

 

The reporting on Taylor and Joe’s split is that it was amicable. But maybe it wasn’t all that amicable? And yet, as we also saw, Taylor’s team rolled out the reporting on the split – it was a controlled release of information. So even if it wasn’t amicable, she doesn’t want to give that impression. Which would be understandable for her to avoid the drama, no mess. At least for now. Until she puts it into song? Or a whole album?

Thanks RA!

Attached - Taylor performing in Tampa last week and Blake and Ryan out in New York yesterday.