ABRAMS WATCHES Swift’s show every night she opens for her, getting a master class in how to “maintain intimacy as you grow and step away from 200-cap venues. She does 80,000 people three times a weekend, and regardless of where you are in the stadium—because I’ve walked around and looked at different views—it feels like just you and her. And she’s the biggest star in the world.”
SHE’S AN avowed Swiftie herself. “Every formative memory in my life is paired with a Taylor Swift song that helped me get through. My boyfriend the other day did the thing where we shuffled her discography and played a song for one second…I got them all.”
SHE FIRST HEARD from Swift via a call from an unknown number inviting Abrams to the superstar’s birthday. Abrams checked it out by calling a mutual producer: “Can you confirm something for me, or is there someone just trying to break my heart?”
AHEAD OF HER first concert performance ever, “I was vomiting because I was so scared. My anxiety had just kind of reached this peak; I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. This isn’t for me. I like to write by myself. I don’t want to be around other people. This is private.’ And the second I got onstage, I was just so happy. I was so proven wrong. I felt so immediately like the songs that I was singing onstage were no longer about me, but it was about all of the people that were in the room that night. And that’s kind of carried on every time I’ve been lucky enough to play a show since then.”
HAIR, BOBBY ELLIOT; MAKEUP, LOFTJET; MANICURE, ALEX JACHNO; SET DESIGN, JENNIFER PIO. PRODUCED ON LOCATION BY PREISS CREATIVE. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS.
