STORIES
Here are 10 of my favorite Post stories that I have written about Taylor Swift, country music, celebrities, reality TV, broadcast TV, and what it all says about us.
When Kanye West grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift onstage at the 2009 MTV VMAs, it became one of the first mega-viral moments on social media. But I wrote about how the incident also created unintended ripple effects that coursed through both Swift and West's careers, as well as our broader culture.
Illustration by Klara Auerbach
Ashley Gorley has co-written more than 80 No. 1 songs for country singers, an astonishing number in any genre, but he's still a relatively unknown name. So he was stunned to be inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2025. I talked to him about the stories behind some of his biggest hits, from the critically acclaimed ballads to the hip-hop-infused tracks that sparked outrage from country traditionalists.
Photo credit Katie Kauss
I happened to be in Los Angeles when the Bravo controversy known as “Scandoval" broke, which felt like fate. I enlisted a reality TV podcaster to accompany me to ground zero of the situation, the restaurant known as Schwartz & Sandy's (RIP), to investigate the meaning of it all.
Photo credit Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for DailyMail.com
I spent two days on the set of TBS's “Conan" with the man who had become the longest-reigning host in late-night TV. This profile contains one of my favorite quotes, when Conan explained why he didn't want to pressure celebrities to play games on his show: “If Dame Judi Dench shows up and says, ‘By the way, I happen to love riding my pogo stick,’ great! But I don’t want to make her ride a pogo stick. Because when she falls, then we’re at war with Britain and it’s my fault.”
Photo credit Brinson + Banks for The Washington Post
I was the only print journalist to get a quote from Taylor Swift during her “Midnights" promotional cycle when I reached out to ask about the origin of why she started embedding clues in her album liner notes that hinted at the true meaning behind her songs. But I also really enjoyed talking to fans about why they love trying to decode her many Easter eggs, even though they know they might not mean anything at all.
Image credit Amy Sussman/Getty; Screenshots from Taylor Swift's Instagram, Twitter and TikTok accounts; iStock; Emily Sabens/Washington Post illustration
Remember “Claymates?" The “Velvet Teddy Bear"? Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard's season of “American Idol" was peak early 2000s reality TV, and two decades later, they went on a tour to commemorate the occasion. This is a story about a very specific time and place in culture, but also about a 20-year friendship.
Photo credit Kevork Djansezian/AP
“Radio tour" is such a common term in country music that no one really thinks twice about it, but at some point, I became obsessed with the idea that singers essentially have to become door-to-door salespeople and pitch themselves to radio stations, even in the streaming era. This piece got a huge response, and someone in Nashville once told me that every time they signed a new artist, they made them read it. (I think of this story as a part 2, or the second step to country stardom: What does it mean to put a song “on hold"?)
Photo credit Michael A. Schwarz/For The Washington Post
From 2019 through the early days of the pandemic, a spate of in-depth documentaries about celebrities (“Allen v. Farrow," “Surviving R. Kelly," “Framing Britney Spears," “Leaving Neverland") started altering the public discourse about certain stars, changing long-held opinions and assumptions that viewers had held for years. And no one was more surprised than the producers behind the films.
Photo credit FX
As soon as Oprah Winfrey asked, “Were you silent? Or were you silenced?" you knew it was all anyone was going to be talking about for days. I wrote about how Oprah's primetime sitdown with Meghan and Harry on CBS was the culmination of her decades of explosive A-list interviews, and how the reach of broadcast TV remains unparalleled.
Photo credit Apple TV Plus
I write a lot about how people are fixated on celebrity relationships, but there was nothing like the moment when Taylor Swift revealed she was dating Travis Kelce by suddenly showing up to the Chiefs-Bears game in Kansas City. The following weekend, I went to MetLife Stadium on the assumption that she would be there again to see the Chiefs play the Jets, which was both correct and highly entertaining.
Illustration by Laura Padilla Castellanos/The Washington Post; Reed Hoffmann/AP; Jason Hanna/Getty Images; iStock