Taylor Swift buys rights to early albums for $464m

Taylor Swift has gained control of all of her life's work, in what she called her "greatest dream come true".

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NEW YORK -

The American pop superstar announced on May 30 that she had acquired the rights to her first six albums, a culmination of a lengthy battle to own her entire catalogue.

She did not disclose the terms, but Billboard reported that she paid around US$360 million (S$464 million).

"To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually to be pretty reserved about it," she wrote. "All I've ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy."

Swift, 35, has seen a personal windfall equal to that figure in just the past 19 months alone.

Her net worth currently stands at US$1.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, up about US$300 million from October 2023, when she was in the middle of her blockbuster The Eras Tour that made her a billionaire for the first time.

While she has framed her fight to reclaim her earlier work as a deeply personal pursuit, she also now stands to profit from licensing her songs in the future.