Taylor Swift makes rare plea while accepting top honor at 2026 iHeartRadio Awards

Taylor Swift added another feather to her cap on Thursday as she received Artist of the Year trophy at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards.

The 36-year-old pop sensation was presented with the honor by American figure skater Alysa Liu.

While accepting the trophy, Taylor lauded Alysa, who brought so much "happiness" to her and the world, at the 2026 Olympics.

"I was so inspired by how much diligence and work and effort and love you have for what you do," the Bad Blood hitmaker told the two-time Olympic gold medalist before addressing the audience.

"To be receiving Artist of the Year, which is ... I love being an artist. I love writing songs more than anything in the world, and I didn't think I was an artist when I first started doing it," continued Taylor.

The Shake It Off songstress then recalled how her hobby of songwriting evolved into a full-blown artistic craft.

“I didn’t think I was an artist when I first started doing it,” Taylor shared. “It was a hobby … and then it was my favorite hobby. And then it was what I would like, rush home from school to do. It was like, I can’t wait to get back to my guitar in my room and write a song.”

"I just wanna say like when I was 12 years old, I had the luxury of spending thousands of hours working at my craft, practicing making mistakes through trial and error and that was all completely unobserved, right? So, that was just me and my craft," recalled the pop megastar.

During her speech, Taylor also urged artists to protect their craft, warning the Internet "will attempt to kill it.'

"If I had one hope for you, I would say that I hope that you get to nurture your hobby and your passion — just between you and that craft," said Taylor.

"Anything you feed the internet, it will attempt to kill. And I don’t want that for your dreams," she added.