Taylor Swift posted her first bikini photo on Instagram to avoid a paparazzi payday

For years, Taylor Swift has been plagued by the rumor that she doesn't have a belly button.

The wacky story was started thanks to the singer's love of high-waisted, two-piece ensembles that do not reveal her lower abdomen.

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I don't like showing my belly button. When you start showing your belly button then you're really committing to the midriff thing. I only partially commit to the midriff thing - you're only seeing lower rib cage. I don't want people to know if I have one or not. I want that to be a mystery. As far as anyone knows based on my public appearances, they haven't seen evidence of a belly button. It could be pierced. They have no idea. If I'm going to get some sort of massive tattoo, it's going to be right next to my belly button because no one's ever going to see that.

But it turns out Swift was just messing with us.

Last month the singer finally posted a bikini photo showing off her much-discussed belly button while on vacation in Hawaii with the sisters of the band Haim.

In an interview with BBC 1 Radio's "Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw" on Tuesday, Swift revealed that posting the photo was a calculated move.

Since she had kept her naval under wraps for so long, Swift knew there would be a high price for whichever paparazzi could first prove its existence.

Not wanting a paparazzi to benefit from her belly button and from invading her private vacation, Swift decided to take matters into her own hands. She explained to Grimshaw:

Basically, on the last day [of vacation] we see a fishing boat a half a mile away. We were like, 'That's a little weird. We're in the middle of the ocean scuba diving.' My security gets out binoculars and sees that they have a huge long-lens camera. At which point, we go back to the beach and we realize, 'Okay, so they got pictures of us in our bikinis, like, I don't want them to make like $100,000 for stalking us.' So we're like, 'Get up on the bow of the boat. We're taking better bikini shots, so they don't make as much money on theirs.'

The moral of the story is that no one is going to benefit off Taylor Swift unless she herself says so. Just ask Spotify.