Taylor Swift paparazzi video highlights the darker side of fame

A 13 second clip of the singer being forced to walk backwards to avoid waiting photographers has gone viral

The internet laughed in unison at Kevin Bacon’s recount of the day he spent on civvie street, wearing a mask to disguise his recognisable features.

“It was almost disturbing,” he told Haute Living LA of his experience as a normal person.

“People kind of looked right through me and weren’t nice. I’ve had fame for so long that I can’t really get my head around what life would be like without it.”

Fame, he said, was “99.9 per cent good”. But this viral clip of Taylor Swift being besieged by paparazzi as she attempts to get into a waiting car definitely shows the less than favourable 0.1 per cent.

The 25-year-old singer is forced to walk backwards by her security to stop the photographers getting a saleable image of her face as she leaves a building in West Hollywood in the 13-second video.

In October 2014, Swift admitted she'd been forced to hire extra security to cope with the increasing number of death threats she was receiving.

“[It’s] because [of] just the sheer number of men we have in a file who have showed up at my house, showed up at my mom's house, threatened to either kill me, kidnap me, or marry me,” she told Esquire.

“This is the strange and sad part of my life that I try not to think about,” she said.

“I try to be lighthearted about it, because I don't ever want to be scared. I don't want to be walking down the street scared. And when I have security, I don't have to be scared.”

The footage comes after Swift was praised for granting a four-year-old fan’s dying wish this week.

The “Shake It Off” star spoke to Jalene Salinas, who suffers from an aggressive form of brain cancer, on Facetime for 20 minutes.

The child’s mother, Jennifer Arriagas, said Swift told her: “It’s just unfathomable to have to watch your baby go through this.”

Checking off the wish from her daughter’s, she said, “means the world to me”.