But after smashing records in 2014 with her first pure pop album 1989, Swifties had an unusually long wait — three years — for her follow-up album reputation.

On Monday, the “ME!” singer opened up in a radio interview with Zach Sang about needing to take some time off and getting back to a positive place again.

“It’s not always fresh for me. There have been times where I needed to take years off because I just felt exhausted, or I felt like, really low or really bad,” she said after Sang asked how she keeps things “fresh” after being in the industry for so long.

“You never really have the same process making an album. Right now, thankfully, I feel really energized which I’m feeling really grateful for. It’s not something that I take for granted, that I feel this energized and this excited about this new music because now I know that’s not always how you feel,” she continued. “Sometimes you can just feel really scared of everything, and so I’m very, very conscious of how I do feel about this new music and how there’s such excitement surrounding it.”

While Swift, 29, is often associated with rainbows and butterflies (especially in the lead-up to her latest era), the star says it’s not always sunny in her world.

“One thing to always keep tabs on is the fact that we have to know that there is no ‘happily ever after’ where we’re just happy forever. Happiness is always going to be a struggle and a challenge we have to try and meet,” she told Sang. “Self-worth is always going to be something, it’s a process of trying to get there.”

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With her latest single, the star hopes to brighten any dark days her fans — and even she herself — might be facing.

“Even in the moment when I’m feeling really, really low, I think it will be helpful when I get to go on stage and play this song and see other people singing it back to me, so it’s not just a song that’s for, ‘Oh, put this song when you feel good about yourself.’ Put this song when you don’t feel good about yourself, and maybe that will help you get back to a point [where you do]. I definitely don’t feel good all the time, and I don’t think anybody does.” 

In the year before reputation‘s release, Swift went largely underground and was rarely photographed in public. On the opening night of her Reputation Stadium Tour, the Grammy winner alluded to her very public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West and opened up to her fans about going through “some really low times.”

In her Elle April cover story, the superstar also referenced bullying she faced after Kardashian West used the snake emoji on social media to describe Swift.

Swift wrote that the “hate campaign” left her feeling “lower than I’ve ever felt in my life,” but added that she took control of the bullying when she brought a 63-foot cobra named Karyn on her Reputation Tour in 2018.

In her interview with Sang, the star revealed that her upcoming seventh studio album is fully complete — and that “ME!” isn’t entirely indicative of the rest of the record.

“This album is a pretty big story. There’s a lot to say, there’s a lot that is said,” she told Sang. “It goes pretty in-depth in lyrics that I’m really proud of. A lot of the time, I’ll pick a first single because I like the feeling that it conveys knowing that there’s a lot more on the album that’s very different from that first single which is something I think the fans have picked up on at this point.”