The Paramore singer first met Taylor in 2011, when the artist rolled into city and invited Hayley to affix her onstage one night time on her Converse Now Tour.
“I actually wasn’t conscious that she lined completely different folks’s songs each night time, which now has change into such an enormous a part of her excursions, like she’ll convey out pals which have huge songs or no matter,” Williams recalled to Stereogum in 2020. “However it blew my thoughts as a result of I did not actually assume—I imply ‘Distress Enterprise’ had been an enormous track on the time, however I actually didn’t think about that that many youngsters would know ‘That is What You Get.’ And it was so enjoyable to get to do this.”
For awhile they had been each residing primarily in Nashville and began hanging out “after the massive Kanye factor occurred.”
“She’s actually a candy individual and this harsh music trade tried to chew her up and spit her out a thousand instances,” Williams mentioned (although she famous that she would not “actually know [Swift] that effectively anymore”). And I feel she all the time rises to the highest as a result of she’s truly an ideal author and an ideal artist. And I do assume that she is only a good individual, you realize?”
Recalling the “Unhealthy Blood” video, “I feel we are able to all clearly see that I do not slot in,” Williams mentioned, laughing. “It was actually f–king cool. Like I needed to do choreography for that battle scene, however then they introduced in a stunt double for the issues I could not do. I positively felt like I used to be in a world I did not belong in. I really feel that approach anytime Paramore’s ever executed one thing that is mega mainstream.”
On the time, although, Williams did admire being given full creative freedom to observe her inspiration for The Crimson Curse.
“[Taylor] was like, ‘I simply want you to choose form of like a preventing fashion and like a reputation,'” Williams advised MTV Information after the video debuted. “I immediately was like I need to be like Leeloo [from The 5th Element] … and that is just about the best way we went with it.”
“All day was a dream [on set],” she added. “I nonetheless textual content [Taylor]…freaking out about the truth that I obtained to play mainly a personality that I am obsessive about.”