Entertainment
Taylor Swift Praises Dakota Johnson in TIME Essay
By Erica Coleman · April 18, 2026
Taylor Swift does not give compliments quietly. When TIME named Dakota Johnson one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2026, Swift wrote the essay — and she went all in.
“In recent years, as she’s promoted her films, the name Dakota Johnson has become synonymous with refreshing honesty in a world of media-trained answers,” Swift wrote in the TIME essay. “Maybe it’s her sing-song vocal delivery, serenely answering questions with such frank candor it makes you feel like maybe this girl just… can’t lie?!”
The tribute landed Wednesday when TIME unveiled its annual list, placing Johnson in the Artists category. Swift, 36, used the essay to do something that felt genuinely unusual for celebrity endorsements — she described her friend as a specific person, not a brand. She vouched for Johnson’s “realness” and called her one of the most empathetic people she has ever known. She also praised Johnson’s relentless curiosity, her willingness to ask questions about other people’s lives, and her growing production company, TeaTime Pictures, as evidence of someone willing to “take newer and bolder risks.”
The friendship between the two women has been largely private, playing out over nearly a decade of shared dinners and overlapping social circles that include Zoë Kravitz, Cara Delevingne, and Suki Waterhouse. Swift gave the public very little of it — until now.
“Her unfailing truthfulness helps to shape her ever-evolving storytelling into art that feels as real and timeless as she is,” Swift concluded.
Johnson responded on Instagram Wednesday, sharing TIME’s cover and offering a two-word acknowledgment of Swift’s tribute: “Thank you T.”
The essay arrives at a particular moment in Johnson’s career. She has spent recent years building a reputation through press tours marked by dry humor and unfiltered answers — the kind that generate viral clips precisely because they don’t sound like they were written by a publicist. That quality is the thing Swift is naming and celebrating, and it has made Johnson a figure of genuine fascination for audiences who are increasingly skeptical of celebrity polish.
What Swift calls “refreshing honesty in a world of media-trained answers” is also, practically speaking, a strategy that has worked. Johnson, 36, has nearly 20 years of screen work behind her, including Fifty Shades of Grey and Daddio, with her profile continuing to rise through her more recent promotional appearances and her development work through TeaTime.
The TIME 100 list also includes JENNIE of BLACKPINK, Luke Combs, and Noah Kahan, with their essays written by Gracie Abrams, Ed Sheeran, and Marcus Mumford respectively. But Swift writing for Johnson brought an immediate gravitational pull the rest of the list cannot match. Billboard noted that Swift is among the most influential figures in music and culture globally — which means her endorsement functions as something closer to a formal consecration than a casual tribute.
Whether the TIME 100 moment translates into a meaningful boost for Johnson’s next projects remains to be seen. What it does establish is that two of the more interesting women in entertainment right now consider each other worth the trouble of a public statement. For Taylor Swift, that is not a small thing.