Taylor Swift misquoted me, I found it funny and pointed it out – and then all hell broke loose

The pop star’s hardcore fans went to work, pouring into my social mentions. I was called just about every gendered expletive you can imagine. Someone suggested I kill myself

Words from my album review were cherry-picked by Taylor Swift – but I soon shook it off (Inez and Vindooh/Vogue)

It’s a strange feeling to review a pop star’s album, only to find that your words have been posted to their 121 million followers on Instagram. It’s stranger still when those words feel oddly unfamiliar.

Last week, I reviewed Taylor’s Swift’s seventh album, Lover. It was something of a military operation – the album was so top secret that a high-clearance publicist had to bring it to the office on an iPod, supervise me while I listened, and then whisk it away again. I liked it. After the excellent, embittered Reputation, it was nice to hear Swift excited to be earnest again, and my four-star review reflected that.

But to me, the album wasn’t perfect. For one thing, it was too long. “At around track 14, Lover starts to feel baggy,” I wrote. “There is a brilliant album among the 18 songs, if only it had been pruned a little.”