The Real Reason We Haven't Heard Much From Taylor Swift Lately

It's hard to remember a time when Taylor Swift didn't rule the celebrity news cycle. Her romantic relationships with A-Listers, enviable friendships with Hollywood women, and feuds with other celebs (imagined or real) made her a paparazzi's dream girl.

Recently, though, Swift has all but disappeared from tabloid covers. Once very active on social media, she's been strangely quiet on Instagram and Twitter. She hasn't posted a personal photo since November of 2016, and her last tweet was a promo for her Fifty Shades Darker song with Zayn Malik in January 2017. So, what's this silence all about? Here's the real reason we haven't heard much from Swift lately.

For the last couple of years, Swift's totally dominated celeb news. Indeed, it was hard to go online without seeing a photo or story about her, and just about impossible to turn on the radio without hearing one of her many, many songs. When celebrities are overexposed like that, it's normal for people to get sick of them — something Swift was aware of all the way back in 2015.

"I'm in the news every single day for multiple different reasons," she said in an interview with NME. "I think I should take some time off. I think people might need a break from me." While there was a significant amount of time between Swift's statement and her actually falling off the grid, perhaps she had a point. Swift faced quite a few issues in 2016, causing people to start seeing her in a negative light. Will distance make our hearts grow fonder?

A feud between Kanye West and Swift has been simmering since the 2009 MTV VMAs when West interrupted Swift's acceptance speech. While they seemingly ended their beef at the 2015 Grammy awards, the peace was short-lived — and this is where things get weird.

About a year later, West dropped his song "Famous" in which he mentions Swift in a rather suggestive set of lyrics: "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that b***h famous." As expected, Swift was not happy. West claimed that he had reached out to Swift for approval before releasing the song, which Swift's PR team denied. Swift even alluded to the song during a speech at the 2016 Grammys, saying, "There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame."

Things only got more heated in June 2016 when Wife's west, Kim Kardashian, told GQ that Swift did indeed approve the lyric. The following month, Kardashian took her allegations a step further when she Snapchatted actual footage of West allegedly reading the "Famous" lyrics to Swift over the phone. The PR nightmare led Swift to release a statement on Twitter in which she asked to be "excluded from this narrative," to which everyone violently shook their heads. While Swift was very active on Twitter up to this point, her tweets have since become more and more sparse.

Swift has literally made a career out of her many failed relationships; they're notoriously short-lived and reportedly act as inspiration for her hit songs.

However, things seemed different when she started dating Calvin Harris in 2015. The relationship lasted well past her average few months, so fans were shocked when the couple called it quits in June of 2016. At first, the breakup seemed amicable. "The only truth here is that a relationship came to an end & what remains is a huge amount of love and respect," Harris wrote in a since-deleted tweet, per TMZ.

Sadly, things soon took a turn for the worst after news broke that Swift had, uh, swiftly began dating actor Tom Hiddleston and had also secretly written Harris' hit song with Rihanna, "This Is What You Came For." The one-two media punch did not sit well with Harris, who quickly slammed Swift in a now-deleted Twitter rant. "I figure if you're happy in your new relationship you should focus on that instead of trying to tear your ex bf down," he wrote. Ouch.

As if one breakup wasn't enough, Swift went through another breakup just a few months after breaking it off with Harris. As reported by E! News, Swift and Hiddleston broke up in September of 2016 because "Taylor felt he wanted to take the relationship to be too public." Their relationship was incredibly odd (remember that "I Heart T.S." tank top?), and was rumored to be contrived and PR-fueled (claims that Hiddleston has since denied). The back-to-back breakups likely played a big role in Swift's withdrawal from the spotlight. Swift stopped posting personal photos on her Instagram right around the time she and Hiddleston broke up.

In 2015, Swift embarked on her 1989 world tour. Though she told NME that she didn't want the tour to come to an end, since its conclusion she hasn't been on stage much. In fact, it's unlikely that she's going to play any shows at all for the remainder of 2017. In February of 2017, she performed at a pre-Super Bowl show, during which she told the audience that it would be "the only show" of the year. "By coming to this show tonight, you are attending 100% of this year's tour dates," she told concert-goers.

Swift's last major release was 1989 in 2014, but historically, she's never gone more than two years in between albums. As we've seen, lots of things have happened in her life since then, which means she has plenty of lyrical fodder. Swift's close friends have confirmed that she's spending time in the studio. Gigi Hadid reportedly told ET back in September of 2016 that Swift was busy recording, and Ed Sheeran hinted to BBC that Swift was planning to release new music at the end of 2017.

Swift's family resides in Nashville, where a source told ET Swift's been spending time "to get away from the paparazzi." It seems her cover is blown, though — the paps caught her hanging at her family's Nashville home in May 2017. According to the Daily Mail, her stay was short. She apparently made a short visit for Mother's Day, and then caught a private jet to an unknown location later that day.