Taylor Swift Delivers Powerful Billboard Acceptance Speech

Taylor Swift won the first-ever Billboard Woman of the Decade award on Thursday evening (December 12) and Swift didn’t hold anything back in her acceptance speech while calling out an industry that doesn’t fully support women as well as the man who took everything from her. Looking back over the past decade Swift says she’s “seen a lot,” including music industry people who love to question whether women deserve to be where there at, “people love to explain away a woman's success in the music industry," said Swift. Taylor compared the amount of scrutiny women receive over men saying, "Have you ever heard someone say about a male artist, 'I really like his songs, but I don't know what it is. There's just something about him I just don't like'? No, that criticism is reserved for us.” Swift went on to show support to fellow female artists, including Lana Del Ray, Normani, Megan Thee Stallion, and Lizzo. She then went in on Scooter Braun who bought her catalog of music without her consent. "I'm fairly certain he knew how I would feel about it. And let me just say that the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, 'But he's always been nice to me!' when I'm raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music. Of course, he's nice to you. If you're in this room, you have something he needs."