If anyone ever doubted Taylor Swift’s mega-star status, the reactions to her eleventh studio album couldn’t have been more emphatic.
The Tortured Poets Department – her surprise double album released on Friday – broke streaming records on all major platforms, from Spotify to Apple Music. It is the first album in Spotify history to have more than 300 million streams in a single day; it’s the biggest pop album of all time according to first-day streams on Apple Music; and became the most streamed album ever on Amazon Music on the day of its release.
That’s probably why information about the billionaire singer, no matter how insignificant, is now a huge commodity.
Step forward Tyler Conroy, a self-confessed superfan who has been hired by ITV’s This Morning to be the show’s first Taylor Swift correspondent. According to Conroy, who has followed her for sixteen years, Swift remains determinedly down-to-earth despite her immense fame. Her biggest weakness: monogrammed bath towels. Monochrome, with TS embroidered on it, to be precise.
Conroy, a 31-year-old Massachusetts-born influencer, has been following Ms. Swift since 2008. At age 15, he started taking guitar lessons so he could learn to play every song from her second album, Fearless. He wrote the 2016 biography Taylor Swift: This Is Our Song.
Conroy, now 31, has followed Ms Swift since 2008. He said: ‘When I met Taylor she hugged me so tight, she knew I had been bullied and she knew she had helped me. I didn’t want to let her go.”
The Tortured Poets Department – Taylor Swift’s surprise double album released Friday – broke streaming records on all major platforms, from Spotify to Apple Music
Tyler Conroy is a self-confessed superfan who has been hired by ITV’s This Morning to be the show’s first Taylor Swift correspondent
The undisputed highlight of Conroy’s life, Tyler says, occurred when he was invited to spend the day with his idol at her New York home after performing a musical in her honor.
There, he and other select fans were given free reign of the star’s downstairs living space — using her bathroom (and those monogrammed towels), helping themselves to everything from her giant refrigerator that was stocked to the brim with her beloved Diet Coke , eating pizza , and wandering around her library where Taylor likes to retreat to read Harry Potter novels.
Her protective father, Scott, was even there at the time, relaxing in the TV corner.
And the music in the background that made the amazed superfan feel at home? Taylor’s hit Shake It Off, of course.
Taylor, 34, bought the seven-bedroom Tribeca mansion in 2014 from Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson. When she was considering the purchase, Sir Ian McKellen was staying there, as Tyler reveals: “Her father told me when Taylor went to look at her apartment that Ian McKellen was sitting there at the dining room table in his pajamas.”
After McKellen moved to make room for her, Taylor then expanded the property by refurbishing three units in the building next door for just under ten million dollars each, before merging the top two floors to create one enormous space , which extends over 8,300 square meters
Ms Swift bought the £15million seven-bedroom mansion in Tribeca, New York from Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson in 2014, which she then expanded with three more units
Today the property is estimated to be worth $50 million (£40 million). Inside, Tyler says, the decor is quite rustic. Taylor is notoriously private when it comes to sharing her home life, but in those few photos of her apartment on social media you can see that her yellow-walled kitchen has white, rather country cabinet doors and wooden beams spanning the ceiling. A large wooden dining table takes pride of place.
Another room has a large TV hidden in a wardrobe, hidden behind ornate Laura Ashley-style white curtains.
Red walls, velvet sofas and neoclassical chandeliers also complete the look.
Tyler tells me more: “Taylor had the entire top floor. Everything was brown, it was old New York style with a red couch and a corner.
“Her dad was sitting there when I was there and told me they had watched Frozen a few weeks earlier. It was so cute.
“I was playing with her pet cats and then I noticed there was a birdcage with a broken Grammy award in it. Taylor had broken it [after dropping it at the awards ceremony] and she wanted to take care of it by putting him in the cage.”
It won’t come as a surprise that there are prizes to be won all over the house, says Tyler: ‘They were everywhere, there were a few by the fireplace. There was even one on top of the toilet, I’ve never seen anything like that before. Most people have some potpourri or some flowers, but she had a Grammy Award on her toilet.”
And the crowning glory of the apartment was undoubtedly the bathroom. ‘Reach [it] there is a secret door behind a bookcase. It’s kind of ‘speak-easy,'” Tyler reveals.
Ms. Swift’s new album is the first in Spotify history with more than 300 million streams per day
The singer also has a Polaroid camera on a cupboard in the lounge, because she likes to take photos regularly. Indeed, her walls are covered with many Polaroid photos of her family.
Her friends think it is appropriate for someone who still tries to keep both feet on the ground. Although she has recently been criticized for using private jets to visit her boyfriend, those who work with her say she is “always making a mess.”
Her work ethic is even said to be “awesome,” which her parents, Andrea and Scott, are credited with.
Taylor regularly insists that her fans come first and that she enjoys connecting with them. “There are no airs and graces, unlike some,” says a member of her team.
However, that does not mean that she avoids confrontation with critics. Her new album has already made headlines for seemingly criticizing her enemies in the lyrics.
Fans claim Kim Kardashian – with whom Taylor has had a long-running feud following a vicious feud between the singer and Kardashian’s ex-husband Kanye West – is the target of the acidic song ‘thanK you aIMee’ as the letters K, I and M are covered to spell her name.
“The Ultimate f*** you,” one Taylor fan wrote online, while another said: “Kim, your day of reckoning is here.”
Others see Matt Healy – Taylor’s ex and lead singer of band The 1975 – as the target of her song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, with brutal lyrics that seem to refer to their short-lived relationship last summer.
Meanwhile, So Long, London seems clearly focused on her ex, British actor Joe Alwyn, and the end of their six-year relationship.
Truly, when Taylor speaks, her adoring fans listen closely. Tyler Conroy insists she “helped me through my 20s when I was working out. She has been my professor over the years.
“When I met Taylor she hugged me so tight, she knew I had been bullied and she knew she had helped me. I didn’t want to let her go.’
Additionally, Tyler, who is gay, says, “She helped me come out. She helped me pronounce it. I was a freshman in college in New York and I was 18 and I thought there was something deep going on and I had to look deep.
“Taylor helped me come out to my family. It was scary, but I listened to her album Fearless and I just knew.”
“The last time I saw her, I asked Taylor to write the word ‘Fearless’ in her handwriting on a piece of paper. She was so excited to do it and I then took it to get a tattoo of it on my left foot.
“I’m an advocate for her and I know so much about her. I feel like the luckiest Swifty in the world.’