On Sunday night, at the fourth of eight London Eras Tour shows, Kelce graced the famed diamond walkway at Wembley Stadium in his first-ever on-stage appearance. He performed alongside Swift during the intro for “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,” in the newly added “Tortured Poets” era of the show.

As Swift transitions into the last song of the era, she typically acts out a short skit with two of her dancers, after she appears to “drop dead” during the penultimate song in the set, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

One of the dancers carries her to a heart-shaped couch, and they then appear to revive a lifeless Swift, changing her costume from a white gown to a two-piece sequin set and applying her makeup to get her ready for the rest of the show so she can, well, do it with a broken heart.

Kelce proved to be a fearless lover on Sunday, joining the trio on stage in full costume, showing off his acting chops as if he were auditioning to be a mainstay for the remainder of tour.

Videos posted to social media of the moment showed Kelce first carrying Swift to the couch, then brushing her face with a makeup brush once she was up again. He showed off some dance moves, too, all with a big, goofy smile plastered to his face.

The track, an upbeat pop banger included on Swift’s latest album, appears to be about the Eras Tour itself, and how Swift has been able to put on one of the biggest and most successful concert runs of all time amid a breakup with longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn last year, shortly after the tour began.

It’s already been a big Eras weekend for Kelce, who has been to some of the London shows. Swift posted a selfie on Instagram featuring Kelce alongside Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, who attended the Friday night show.

Kelce and Swift have been linked for nearly a year now, as rumors swirled last summer about a potential relationship after Kelce boldly declared on his podcast, “New Heights,” that he tried (and failed) to give Swift a friendship bracelet with his number on it at one of her Kansas City shows.

They went public with their relationship in September when Swift attended a Kansas City Chiefs game against the Chicago Bears and they have been caught supporting each other and their very public careers ever since. 

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Taylor Swift isn’t being delicate about her feelings for Travis Kelce.

In fact, the “Fortnight” singer added in a special nod to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end during her June 21 Eras Tour show at London’s Wembley Stadium, which Kelce attended alongside brother Jason Kelce, sister-in-law Kylie Kelce and close friend Ross Travis.

During her performance of “So High School,” Swift, 34, mimed drawing back a bow and arrow like an archer before she sat down on the bleachers to sing. The cute gesture referenced one of Travis Kelce’s signature moves when he’s celebrating a touchdown at Arrowhead Stadium.

And the NFL star’s reaction to the moment was nothing short of adorable. In a video shared to TikTok June 21, Travis Kelce, also 34, was seen singing along to the entirety of the “Tortured Poets Department” track while watching the stage with a huge smile on his face.

Of course, this isn’t the only reference to the football player in Swift’s performance of “So High School,” which fans believe was inspired by their romance.

Taylor Swift Cheers on Travis Kelce at Her 4th Kansas City Chiefs Game

While sitting on the bleachers, the Grammy winner and her backup dancers also do a rendition of the swag-surf — a move Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs often do when celebrating a win.

As for what the “New Heights” podcast host thought of that choreography addition? It’s safe to say it earned his approval. After all, Travis Kelce previously shared it’s his favorite song on the album and he had a “blast” watching the updated version of the show in Paris alongside Swift’s pal Gigi Hadid and her boyfriend Bradley Cooper.

“It was an all-around lovely night,” Travis Kelce recalled during a May 15 episode of “New Heights.” “I don’t know if they’re just getting better or if I’m just forgetting how good they are.”

He added, “It was electric.”

Joe Alwyn is speaking out for the first time about his split from Taylor Swift.

The “Mary Queen of Scots” actor shared his thoughts on their 2023 breakup in a rare interview, more than a year after the two ended their long relationship.

“I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathize and understand the difficulties that come with the end of a long, loving, fully committed relationship of over six and a half years,” Alwyn told The Sunday Times in an interview published June 15. “That is a hard thing to navigate.”

Taylor Swift Jun 15

Why Taylor Swift played Rihanna's ‘This Is What You Came For' as a surprise song

Taylor Swift Jun 13

It's the end of an era: Taylor Swift says Eras Tour will end in December

Referring to the mass public scrutiny over the breakup, the 33-year-old continued, “What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, one week later, it’s suddenly in the public domain and the outside world is able to weigh in.”

The British star made his comments after being asked if he had listened to Swift’s new album “The Tortured Poets Department,” which contains several Easter Eggs related to her love life, past and present.

All of Taylor Swift’s Songs Inspired By Joe Alwyn

The name of the album itself is similar to a WhatsApp group chat nicknamed “The Tortured Man Club” that Alwyn used to be involved in with fellow actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott (who set it up, as the “Fleabag” alum told Variety last month).

In addition, many fans and critics believe the album’s track “So Long London,” is an apparent nod to her split from Alwyn. The lyrics to another breakup song, “The Black Dog,” references “some bar” of the same name, which appears to be a pub in London’s Vauxhall neighborhood.

However, as Alwyn stated in his latest interview, “I’ve never been to Vauxhall.”

The pop is known for her surprise songs, which Swifties don’t know which track it could be until show night. During her June 14 concert in Liverpool, England, Swift performed an acoustic version of Rihanna and Calvin Harris’ “This Is What You Came For” mashed with “Gold Rush.”

“I didn’t even know that was an option,” one person tweeted.

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Taylor Swift Jun 13

It's the end of an era: Taylor Swift says Eras Tour will end in December

While some people might question Swift’s decision to cover the song during her show, the singer actually has a very close and personal connection to the 2016 hit.

Read on to learn why Swift sang “This Is What You Came For” during her show.

Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift dated

Swift and Harris dated for 15 months from 2015 to 2016. Swift confirmed her relationship with the DJ in her 2016 Vogue cover story released in April, saying, “I’m in a magical relationship right now. And of course I want it to be ours, and low-key … this is the one thing that’s been mine about my personal life.”

However, by June of that year, the couple had gone their separate ways. The Scottish artist broke his silence on the breakup on then-Twitter.

“The only truth here is that a relationship came to an end & what remains is a huge amount of love and respect,” he wrote in a silence-deleted tweet.

Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris wrote ‘This Is What You Came For’

Performed by Harris and Rihanna, “This Is What You Came For” was released in April 2016.

When the song dropped, Harris was credited at the songwriter alongside a “Nils Sjöberg.” Her involvement in the song was kept secret until she revealed her writing credit in a 2020 conversation with Paul McCartney for Rolling Stone.

“I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males,” Swift told the former Beatle. “I wrote this song called ‘This Is What You Came For’ that Rihanna ended up singing. And nobody knew for a while.”

She added, “I remembered always hearing that when Prince wrote ‘Manic Monday,’ they didn’t reveal it for a couple of months.”

Swift’s usage of a pseudonym, she said, came because of her love of making music.

“I think, when a pseudonym comes in is when you still have a love for making the work and you don’t want the work to become overshadowed by this thing that’s been built around you, based on what people know about you,” Swift explained.

Has Taylor Swift performed ‘This Is What You Came For’ before?

This isn’t the first time Swift has performed the electro-pop song. In late 2016, she sang “This Is What You Came For” while on the piano during a show at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin.

She also sang it at pre-Super Bowl event in February 2017, according to Billboard.

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Taylor Swift announced Thursday night during her Eras Tour show in Liverpool, England, that her behemoth concert tour will officially end its unprecedented run in December, presumably after her December 6-8 shows in Vancouver, Canada, at the BC Palace.

“This is the very first time I’ve ever acknowledged to myself and admitted that this tour is gonna end in December. Like, that’s it,” Swift said in a speech onstage during the “Red” set.

“That feels like so far away from now, but then again, it feels like we just played our first show on this tour because you have made this so much fun for us that we wanted to do 100 shows, 150-something shows that we have on the whole tour,” she continued.

Swift said the Eras Tour has “become my entire life” and has “taken over everything,” including her hobbies, which have been replaced with sitting at home and trying “to think of clever, like, acoustic song mashups and think about what you might want to hear” during the “surprise song” set of her show.

From the stage, Swift also acknowledged that Thursday’s show was the 100th on the Eras Tour (on June 13, no less). She called the experience the “most exhausting, all-encompassing, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life, this tour, these moments with you.”

The Eras Tour started March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona and has since spanned five continents. When the tour wraps, Swift will have performed 152 shows. The tour has broken records and yielded (a few versions of) a concert tour movie that broke records in its own right

Thursday’s comments mark the first time Swift has publicly announced an end date to her beloved Eras Tour, which she had been adding dates to over the course of the last year.

It’s unclear what Swift will be up to next, but any true Swiftie knows it’s sure to be enchanting.

Swift continues her European run this weekend in Liverpool, before a rare Tuesday show in Cardiff, Wales, followed by shows in London next week. 

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Taylor Swift is looking out for her fans.

While performing an “Eras” tour concert at Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland June 7, the Grammy winner stopped performing her “Midnights” album track “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” to help an audience member who appeared to be in distress. She did however, continue to sing and play her guitar while asking for assistance.

“We need help right in front of me, please, right in front of me,” the 34-year-old sang to the more than 70,000 fans, as seen in a video shared by one of them. “Gonna keep playing until we notice where it is. Right there. I’m just gonna keep playing ’til somebody helps them, then I’m gonna keep singing the song.”

Swift continued, “I don’t think anybody’s gotten to them yet, and they’re gonna. Because we’re not gonna keep singing, we’re just gonna keep talking about the people that need help in front of me. Just let me know when. I can do this all night.”

Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department Easter Eggs

She then said, “OK, you’re good? Awesome!” before performing the rest of “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve.”

About a minute later, Swift paused mid-song again and expressed distress herself. “My hand is frozen in a weird cramp” she said. “This is so embarrassing.”

The singer has paused past concerts to help fans in distress, including May 24 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Swift is set to perform two more shows in Edinburgh before heading to Liverpool for three shows, starting June 13, to continue the European leg of her tour.

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Like many fans of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Jason Sudeikis also wants to find out what happens in the next chapter of their love story.

So when the NFL star joined him onstage for a comedy sketch at the annual Big Slick Celebrity Weekend charity event in Kansas City, Mo. June 1, the “Ted Lasso” actor popped the ultimate question.

“Hey Travis, real talk, OK, just the guys here,” Sudeikis said, as seen in videos shared by fans. “When are you going to make an honest woman out of her?”

As much of the crowd erupted in cheers, the Kansas City Chiefs star tight end smiled and rubbed his beard for a couple of seconds.

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Taylor Swift's entire dress coming off during concert proves she can do it with wardrobe malfunction

Sudeikis — who was speaking in character alongside his real-life uncle George Wendt of “Cheers” fame and Robert Smigel in a tribute to the latter two’s recurring ’90s “Saturday Night Live” sketch Bill Swerski’s Super Fans — joked, “Look, Taylor doesn’t need to be working anymore.”

Celebrities Attending Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour

The fellow “SNL” alum added, “I know your kicker agrees with me” — an apparent reference to Kansas City Chiefs player Harrison Butker’s recent controversial commencement speech at Benedictine College, a Catholic school, in which he said most female graduates would be “most excited” about marriage and motherhood.

Kelce briefly threw his head back and then let out a small chuckle in response as he continued to sit calmly next to the trio, who went on to joke about women’s voting rights.

“Guys,” the Chiefs star tight end finally said, “you’re really pushing it.”

Swift was not spotted at the charity event, which also included Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and which raises money for Children’s Mercy hospital in Kansas City. On June 2, the “Blank Space” singer is set to perform in Décines, France as part of her Eras tour.

Kelce has attended several of his girlfriend’s shows since the two began dating last summer, most recently May 12 in Paris, where he was also joined by Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper. Swift and the Super Bowl champion then jetted off to Italy, where they vacationed in Lake Como.

Kelce has been asked before about the prospects of getting engaged to the 14-time Grammy winner.

“I’m focused on getting this ring,” he told reporters at a Feb. 5 press conference ahead of the 2024 Super Bowl, which the Chiefs won against the San Francisco 49ers. “That’s all my mind is focused on right now.”

At professional services firm KPMG, managing director Rob Breakiron feels more popular among his entry-level colleagues than he should be as a 45-year-old. He has an unlikely ally in building this office reputation: Taylor Swift.

Breakiron’s affinity for Swift has made him, like many of the “Mastermind” singer’s songs, a hit. He often wears Swift’s merchandise or friendship bracelets from her ongoing Eras tour on team calls. The visual cues aren’t missed by fans of the 14-time Grammy winner’s music, and it helps build connections that can establish him as a trusted mentor.

“It very much directly impacts my ability to connect to the younger generation,” said the northern Virginia resident. “I don’t think it should be underestimated.”

Breakiron is known within his division as the “Swiftie Dad.” After attending multiple tour stops with his daughter, and with more planned over the summer, he’s become a go-to source for teammates seeking concert-related advice.

Coming out of the remote-work era, companies are attempting to reset expectations around norms such as what to wear and how to communicate. In a period rife with headbutting on everything from politics to return-to-office mandates, superstar performers Swift and Beyoncé are providing co-workers across generations and seniority levels with safe terrain to bond over.

The trend first sprouted last year as the pop icons crisscrossed the U.S. on tour. Now, with new albums from both performers topping charts in recent weeks and Swift’s show restarting this month, the two are once again often the topic du jour by water coolers or at the sometimes-awkward start of virtual meetings.

This can be welcome in the post-pandemic world of work, given the continued difficulty of building relationships in hybrid or all-online settings, according to associate professor Angela Hall of Michigan State University’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. These ties can help people feel more supported and happy in their roles, she said, which is a plus for both employees and executives at a time of worker apathy.

“Anything that can get people to form a connection, a bond, an affinity, is really important — whether it’s Beyoncé or Taylor, whether it’s the fact that they like to bake, or they have pets,” Hall said. “If people can connect on that level, it can only make things better.”

Hall pointed to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management that showed 45% of workers surveyed feel “emotionally drained” by their jobs and more than half feel “used up” at the end of the workday. Those stats contribute to a sour picture of American labor sentiment following years defined by “quiet quitting” and the “great resignation.”

And employees who report feeling burned out are almost three times more likely to be actively looking for a new job, the research found. But there’s a key caveat: Those who feel a strong sense of belonging in their company are 2½ times less likely to feel burned out in the first place.

A ‘unifying’ interest

Self-proclaimed “Swiftie” Andrew Boyagi agrees with Hall. Other managers might see discussing personal interests during work as a waste of time. But the Atlassian senior director views these moments as essential to forming relationships that can prove beneficial down the road.

“When you’re in the trenches at work, knowing someone personally really helps,” said Boyagi, who oversees a team of more than 20 people located around the world from his home in Australia.

He’s seen updates on Swift’s music and personal life as something employees from across generations jump in to discuss on a team messaging forum. It’s common ground for a group that isn’t always in complete cultural harmony, he said.

For instance, a younger team member informed more senior colleagues that the thumbs-up emoji could be considered passive-aggressive. Boyagi said high-five emojis have emerged as a popular — and subtext-safe — replacement.

“Having been around when ‘thumbs up’ was one of the only emojis available, some of us were very shocked,” he said.

The Swift/Beyoncé buzz has reached the top of major corporations, with business moguls from Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos to Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio attending the artists’ concerts. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted photos of his face bejeweled and wrists covered in friendship bracelets, which have become a hallmark accessory of Swift’s tour.

And it’s earned clout from subordinates for executives such as Susan St. Ledger, president of worldwide field operations at cloud company HashiCorp. St. Ledger, 59, referenced Swift during a sales kick-off speech and walked on stage to the song “Fearless.” Afterward, employees gave her friendship bracelets, one of which had lettered beads spelling out “fearless leader.”

“It’s a reality that a title distances you from people, whether you like it or not,” St. Ledger said. Despite that, she said, Swift’s music has been a “universal language” that’s helped her connect with everyone from the fathers of fans to women who see themselves in the singer.

Some companies capitalized on the cultural phenomena created by the tours. Megh McLaughlin was one of three employees sent to Florida on a reward trip by software company Air that included a night at Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour. After the three women attendees got back, McLaughlin created a recurring virtual meeting for them to catch up with each other, with a title themed to the song “Run the World (Girls).”

Others have brought this excitement to the workplace. Amani Albertsen organized a viewing for the film version of Swift’s Eras tour, which began streaming on Disney+ in March, at the Austin office of financial technology firm Wise. 

Albertsen was somewhat nervous opening the event up to the entire building, unsure what non-Swifties would think. While attendees from across departments came together for pre-movie trivia and making friendship bracelets, other colleagues respectfully observed the festivities through the glass doors.

“I thought we were going to get made fun of,” Albertsen said, before adding that the gathering was widely supported and a “unifying” experience.

‘A genuine dose of personality’

Swift and Beyoncé offer noncontroversial talking points as multiple wars wage abroad and the U.S. barrels toward a divisive presidential election, said Michigan State’s Hall. The superstars can also be a distraction for workers contending with economic challenges such as high inflation and the rising cost of homeownership, she added.

Because these performers have had name recognition for over a decade, multiple generations can simultaneously claim interest in them. Meanwhile, non-fans have had time to become at least acquainted with the singers through younger family members or popular culture.

For many employees CNBC interviewed, the artists have given them a way to bring more of themselves to work.

Atlan product marketing lead Sharif Karmally said his ears perked up when a co-founder said Swift was a person she admired. It was during one of the data startup’s “Jeffersonian dinners,” where everyone at the table engages in one meaningful conversation as opposed to several side chats.

That led to an idea for a creative way to announce Atlan’s latest funding round: a music video themed to Swift’s new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” Karmally wrote the lyrics, and members of the team, from founders to new hires, participated.

When Beyoncé stopped in Atlanta, a colleague tapped Raeah Smith for her knowledge of the “Halo” singer while writing copy tied to the tour for a client of their advertising agency. Smith is part of a co-worker group chat created for discussion of the 32-time Grammy winner and shares her appreciation of Beyoncé as a conversation starter with new hires.

“I was just able to bring a little bit of insider lingo to the post,” Smith said.

Smith said Beyoncé’s fan base, the so-called Beyhive, hasn’t found the equivalent of the Swiftie friendship bracelet, but the co-workers have discussed buying cowboy hats and boots after the Texas-born performer’s recent transition into country music.

Last year, Matt Lindner took time off his media marketing gig to travel to Minneapolis from Chicago for Swift’s concert. Knowing her popularity, Lindner included references — or Easter eggs, as some fans call them — to her songs when crafting an out-of-office email informing people about his plans.

“You’ve drawn my blank space,” the 41-year-old wrote. “If this is urgent, don’t just shake it off,” he later added. “The last thing I want is for there to be any bad blood between us.” 

When Lindner returned to his remote job, conversations with co-workers or external clients included discussion about whether others were also seeing the show and their favorite songs. Consider the virtual ice broken.

“It’s kind of my job to put out good vibes in general,” he said of his marketing position. And “a genuine dose of personality — even if it’s something as simple and banal as an out-of-office message — kind of helps reinforce the notion that yeah, there’s a person behind the screen.”

Who’s afraid of a little old wardrobe malfunction?

Certainly not Taylor Swift, who effortlessly handled a tech issue that required her to take off her dress during the acoustic section of her May 19 “Eras Tour” show in Stockholm, Sweden.

After noting that part of the sound device attached to her outfit had “come undone,” the “Fortnight” singer told the crowd in a video posted to TikTok May 20, “Just talk amongst yourselves.”

Following the instruction, Swift sat at her piano bench and undid her entire ombré blue wrap dress in an attempt to make adjustments herself, revealing her black-and-gold bedazzled set underneath, which she wore during the previous “Tortured Poets Department” era of the show. When that didn’t work either, one of her crew members arrived on stage to help her.

Naturally, fans attending the Stockholm concert were surprised by the unexpected dress removal, with one concertgoer heard asking in the clip, “Oh, is she changing?”

Others praised Swift for being “Ms. Perfectly Fine” through the whole ordeal, with one TikTok user commenting, “Even when there’s a malfunction she’s adorable.”

Of course, this wasn’t the first mishap that Swift’s had to shake off since her tour kicked off over a year ago. Back in February, the 34-year-old almost took a tumble off one of the set builds during a stop in Tokyo.

“I almost fell off the Folklore cabin,” Swift said after finishing her Feb. 9 performance of “The 1.” “But I didn’t and that’s the lesson.”

Quipping that her “life flashed before my eyes,” the Grammy winner jokingly added, “No, I’m good. Everything’s fine, everything’s great.”

Last week, thousands of people went to the City of Lights for another reason: To see Taylor Swift kick off the European leg of the “Eras Tour” at París La Défense Arena.

Those in attendance included 9-year-old Julissa Vargas and her mom, Telemundo 20 executive producer Kathia Lopez-Santos. The trip of Julissa’s dreams turned into one she’ll never forget.

Vargas received the surprise of her life when she attended Night 1 of the “Eras Tour” in Paris.

NBC 7’s Brooke Martell, a Swiftie herself, asked Vargas what it was like being hugged by Taylor Swift. Because, yes, that happened.

“I don’t know. It was awesome,” The 9-year-old said. “It was, I don’t know, it was one of the best moments of my life. And she gave me a high-five with her two hands.”

But a hug from the world-famous pop icon was not on the original itinerary. The original plan: a trip to Paris with her parents and a chance to see the singer. It’s already something so many people, let alone a 9-year-old girl, could never imagine in their wildest dreams.

“I’ve always wanted to be in Paris,” Vargas said. “That’s my favorite!”

So, last week, after a long flight and a night of sleep, it was already time to get ready to see Swift. Wearing a black beaded dress, the Californian native couldn’t wait.

“I was dressed Reputation-theme because that’s my favorite album — all of it,” Vargas said.

As the mother and daughter made their way through the crowds of Swifties, they found their spots on the floor of the arena, waiting in anticipation for the night to begin.

“Everyone was there to dance, and the worst part: It was the tallest people,” Vargas said.

They didn’t have the best view, but that didn’t matter.

“I was fine with it,” she said. “I honestly just wanted to hear the music coming from her mouth, like hearing actual words in the actual moment.”

Someone had their eye on Vargas though, which meant her experience was about to become unforgettable.

”I thought she was leading me to the exit until she stopped in front of the stage, and the guy asked, ‘Can I pick you up? and I was like, ‘Yeah!’ ” Vargas said. “And then I finally realized what was happening.”

It’s a moment all Swifties dream of but only one gets to experience per night, as Swift performs her song “22.”

For those who’ve attended the show or seen the concert clips online, this is a point in the show from the “Red” era. The singer skips down the runway of the stage, and there’s always someone at the end of it waiting for her. This time, it was Julissa Vargas.

”I could only hear the part where she says, ‘Can I give you a hug?’ and she also said, ‘Thank you for coming,’ ” Vargas said.

A hug and she received something to keep: the coveted “22” hat.

“This is the hat she gave me, and it’s signed inside,” Vargas said, gesturing.

It’s a night the 9-year-old will never forget.

“I still can’t believe it actually happened to me,” Vargas said. “I see the YouTube Shorts and I’m still like, ‘Me?’ “

She said she’ll never forget that moment and sees herself as a lifelong fan of Taylor Swift.

”I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” Vargas said.

Don’t worry: After Vargas met Swift, she was taken to the VIP section where she and her mother had the best view to watch the rest of the show.

Taylor Swift performed her first show since the release of her 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” May 9 in Paris, and audiences were met with a surprise: a revamped setlist.

Each concert in the record-breaking “Eras Tour,” which kicked off March 17, 2023, in Arizona, has typically run for three hours and 15 minutes. The standard setlist was made up of songs from each of Swift’s albums except her 2006 debut.

But at her first Paris show of the tour, Swift introduced a new “era” to represent her latest album.

The tour intro, featuring purple and pink waving pieces of fabric, notably features a medley of Swift singing the names of her albums, before kicking off her first song, “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.”

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On May 9, the concert opening featured a new black-and-white onscreen background, the addition of a choral “The Tortured Poets Department” and a new orange and red bodysuit, foreshadowing several notable costume changes to come.

During an edited “Red” era of the show, Swift teased that the crowd in Paris made her want to bring out “all kinds of fun surprises.”

Later in the show, Swift officially debuted her new era with a “Tortured Poets Department” section of her show. Influencer Chris Olsen live-streamed the Paris concert from TikTok, and when the “Tortured Poets” era began, more than 200,000 users watched along.

Here’s what happened.

‘The Tortured Poets Department’ makes the ‘Eras Tour’ setlist

“The Tortured Poets Department” section began ominously, with echoes of her voice from “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” and other songs.

Here are the songs Swift performed from her 11th album:

• “But Daddy I Love Him”
• Bridge of “So High School” (thought to be about boyfriend Travis Kelce)
• “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
• “Down Bad”
• “Fortnight”
• “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” (performed with a drum line)
• “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”

The era introduced a new set piece — a mirrored box that allowed Swift to glide and seemingly levitate — across the stage as she belted out the album’s powerful lyrics. She also seemingly re-created the sterile asylum-like set of her music video “Fortnight” onstage.

After “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Swift seemingly laid lifeless on the stage until two dancers carried her over to a red heart shaped box. She changed costumes as a jazzy, theatrical instrumental track played before performing “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,” juxtaposing the rousing beat with devastating lyrics.

After the era, Swift went into the acoustic set, and told the crowd that her nickname for the “Tortured Poets” section is “female rage, the musical.”

Swift first teased the addition of “Tortured Poets” to the setlist with a YouTube Short featuring her single “Fortnight.” In the black-and-white video, Swift shows fans a “fortnight,” or two-week period, in her life, including what appears to be rehearsals for the restart of the “Eras Tour” after two months off.

In several clips, fans noticed props and costumes that they didn’t recognize from the “Eras Tour,” such as top hats and canes. Those top hats and canes came into play during the finale of the era, accompanied by a theater marquee that read, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”

Did the rest of the ‘Eras Tour’ setlist change?

Yes, several songs from the setlist were trimmed or dropped entirely, seemingly to make room for “Tortured Poets.”

First, “The Archer” was cut from the “Lover” era. Then Swift made some major alterations to the order of the setlist. “Red,” normally the sixth section of the night, moved up, with “22” immediately following “Fearless.”

After “Red,” the stage lights turned purple and a troupe of dancers came onstage to perform a new number to an orchestral version of “Enchanted,” which Swift sang after to usher in the “Speak Now” era. “Long Live” was cut from the setlist.

While “Reputation” ran the same, Swift then combined her “sister albums” — “Folklore” and “Evermore” — into one era, which fans can call “Everlore” or “Folkmore,” she said onstage. That section saw significant trims, with Swift cutting “The 1,” “The Last Great American Dynasty” and “Tolerate It.”

The “1989” era remained unchanged and immediately preceded “The Tortured Poets Department.” The rest of the concert continued as normal.

Here’s the new order of Swift’s eras, based on her first Paris concert:

• “Lover”
• “Fearless”
• “Red”
• “Speak Now”
• “Reputation”
• “Folklore”/”Evermore”
• “1989”
• “The Tortured Poets Department”
• Surprise songs
• “Midnights”

This isn’t the first time Swift’s setlist has seen changes. The singer started her tour by only performing one song from her third studio album, “Speak Now.” But after the release of the rerecorded album in July 2023, Swift added “Long Live” to the setlist.

Then, when Haim joined Swift on tour, she adjusted the opening to her “Evermore” set, swapping “‘Tis the Damn Season” for “No Body, No Crime.”

The original setlist (minus “‘Tis the Damn Season” and “No Body, No Crime”) is notably immortalized in the “Eras Tour” concert film. The movie opened at AMC Theatres Oct. 13, 2023 with some trims. But an extended “Taylor’s Version” of the concert film hit Disney+ March 14 with some of those fan-favorite songs added back in.

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The pop star is scheduled to kick off the 18-city Europe leg of her record-setting Eras Tour in Paris on Thursday, and planeloads of Swifties plan to follow Miss Americana across the pond in the coming weeks. The arena where Swift is appearing said Americans bought 20% of the tickets for her four sold-out shows. Stockholm, the tour’s next stop, expects about 10,000 concertgoers from the U.S.

A concert might sound like an odd raison d’etre for visiting a foreign country, especially when fans can watch the Eras Tour from home via the documentary now streaming on Disney+. Yet online travel company Expedia says continent-hopping by Swift’s devotees is part of a larger trend it dubbed “tour tourism” while observing a pattern that emerged during Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour.

Some North American fans who plan to fly overseas for the Eras Tour said they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made seeing Swift perform abroad no more costly — and potentially cheaper — than catching her closer to home.

“They said, ’Wait a minute, I can either spend $1,500 to go see my favorite artist in Miami, or I can take that $1,500 and buy a concert ticket, a round-trip plane ticket, and three nights in a hotel room,” Melanie Fish, an Expedia spokesperson and travel expert, said.

That was the experience of Jennifer Warren, 43, who lives in St. Catharines, a city in the Niagara region of Ontario. She and her 11-year-old son love Swift but had no luck scoring what she considered as decently priced tickets in the U.S. Undeterred, Warren and her husband decided to plan a European vacation around wherever she managed to get seats. It turned out to be Hamburg, Germany.

“You get out, you get to see the world, and you get to see your favorite artist or performer at the same time, so there are a lot of wins to it,” said Warren, who works as the director of research and innovation for a mutual insurance company.

The three VIP tickets she secured close to the stage — “I would call it brute-force dumb luck” — cost 600 euros ($646) each. Swift subsequently announced six November tour dates in Toronto, within driving distance of Warren’s home. “Absolute nose-bleed seats” already are going for 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,194) on secondary resale sites like Viagogo, Warren said.

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TOUR TOURISM: IS IT REALLY A THING?

Hard-core fans trailing their favorite singer or band on tour is not a new phenomenon. “Groupie” emerged in the late 1960s as a somewhat derogatory word for the ardent followers of rock bands. Deadheads took to the road in the 1970s to pursue the Grateful Dead from city to city.

More recently, music festivals like California’s Coachella and England’s Glastonbury, and concert residencies in Las Vegas by the likes of Elton John, Lady Gaga and Adele, have attracted travelers to places they wouldn’t otherwise visit, Fish noted.

Travel and entertainment analysts have also spoken of a pent-up consumer demand for “experiences” over material objects since the coronavirus pandemic. Some think the willingness of music lovers to broaden their fandom horizons is part of the same mass cultural correction.

“It does seem like it’s more than a structural shift, maybe a personality transformation we all went through,” said Natalia Lechmanova, the chief Europe economist for the Mastercard Economics Institute.

As Swift hopscotches across Europe, Lechmanova expects restaurants and hotels to see the same boost that Mastercard observed within a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) radius of concert venues in the U.S. cities she visited in 2023. The U.S. dollar’s strong value against the euro may also increase retail spending on apparel, memorabilia, beauty products and supplies for the friendship bracelets fans exchange as part of the Eras Tour experience, the economist said.

Former college roommates Lizzy Hale, 34, who lives in Los Angeles, and Mitch Goulding, 33, who lives in Austin, Texas, already had tickets to see the Eras Tour in L.A. last summer when they decided to try to get ones for Paris, London or Edinburgh, Scotland, too. They saw a Europe concert trip as a makeup for travel plans they had in May 2020 to celebrate Goulding’s birthday but had to cancel due to the pandemic.

Goulding managed to secure VIP tickets for one of Swift’s three Stockholm shows. He, Hale and two other friends scheduled a 10-day trip that also includes time in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

“As people who enjoy traveling and enjoy music, if you can find an opportunity to combine the two, it’s really special,” said Hale, who is pregnant with her first child.

FOR STOCKHOLM, 120,000 SWIFTIES CAN’T BE WRONG

The local economic impact of what the zeitgeist has termed “Swiftonomics” and the “Swift lift” can be considerable. Airbnb reported Tuesday that searches on its platform for the U.K. cities where Swift is performing in June and August — Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and London — increased an average of 337% when tickets went on sale last summer.

Not to be outdone when it comes to trend-spotting, the property rentals company cited the demand as an example of “passion tourism,” or travel “driven by concerts, sports and other cultural events.”

In Stockholm, 120,000 out-of-towners from 130 countries — among them 10,000 from the U.S. — are expected to swarm Sweden’s capital this month, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce Chief Economist Carl Bergqvist said. Stockholm is the only Scandinavian city on Swift’s tour, and airlines added extra flights from nearby Denmark, Finland and Norway to bring people to the May 17-19 shows, he said.

The city’s 40,000 hotel rooms are sold out even though prices skyrocketed for the tour dates, Bergqvist said. Concert visitors are expected to pump around 500 million Swedish kroner, or over $46 million, into the local economy over the course of their stays, an estimate that does not include what they paid for Swift tickets or to get to Sweden, he said.

“So this is going to be huge for the tourism sector in Sweden and Stockholm in particular,” Bergqvist said.

Nightclubs, restaurants and bars are seizing the opportunity to cater to fans with Taylor Swift-themed events, such as karaoke, quizzes and after-concert dance parties.

Houston resident Caroline Matlock, 29, saw Swift more than a year ago when the Eras Tour came to the Texas city. Now she’s making more friendship bracelets and trying to learn a few words of Swedish as she prepares to see the 3 1/2-hour show in Stockholm. The idea of seeing Swift in Europe was her friend’s, and Matlock needed some persuading at first.

“I was like, ‘I only want to go if it’s a country I haven’t been to. I’ve seen Taylor Swift,’” she said.

Visiting the Scandinavian cities of Oslo and Gothenburg is on their itinerary. The concert is the last night of the trip and Matlock looks forward to interacting with Swifties from other countries: “Americans tend to have a very obsessive culture, especially Taylor Swift-related, so I’m curious if the crowd will be more toned-down.”

WILL TOUR TOURISM ENDURE AFTER ERAS?

It remains to be seen if the music tourism trend has legs as long and strong as Swift’s and Beyoncé’s, and if it will carry over to Billie Eilish, Usher and other artists with world tours scheduled next year. Expedia’s Fish thinks other big-name artists in Europe this summer will prove that booking a foreign trip around a concert is catching on.

Kat Morga, a travel consultant based in Nashville, isn’t so sure. Morga saw Swift perform in Nashville last year and helped two clients with school-aged children book European family vacations this summer that include seeing Swift in concert. But she thinks the difficulty of navigating ticket purchases through language barriers, currency conversions, international banking regulations and the risk of cancellations will limit the appeal of regular gig getaways.

“I think this is an anomaly,” Morga said. “People aren’t typically going to build their $20,000 huge family vacation only because Taylor Swift is there. She’s the one-off. She’s special.”

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel, whose company operates Booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com, Kayak and OpenTable, is even less enthusiastic about concert tours as a tourism instigator. The Swift Effect causes a “little blip” when the superstar goes to smaller destinations, but for the worldwide travel industry, “one star touring around does not make a difference,” he said.

“It may just shift it a little bit. A person was going to go to the Caribbean for a week vacation. Instead that person (says), ‘Let’s travel to the Taylor Swift thing,'” Fogel said. “It doesn’t increase it. It just moves it from here to there.”

___

AP journalists Colleen Barry in Milan, Chisato Tanaka in Stockholm, Anne D’Innocenzio in New York, David Koenig in Dallas, Thomas Adamson in Paris and Brian Melley in London contributed reporting.

The double album has amassed 2.61 million equivalent album units, according to Luminate, the industry data and analytics company. A shocking 1.91 million of those units come from traditional album sales — people purchasing downloads, CDs, cassettes and vinyl. Vinyl accounts for 859,000 units sold, the highest number of vinyl sales in modern history.

It is the top-selling album of 2024, eclipsing Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter,” which sold 228,000 units. (But streaming was a boon: “Cowboy Carter” hit 407,000 equivalent album units, a combination of pure album sales and on-demand streams, earned in the U.S. in its first week.)

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“The Tortured Poets Department” hit 891.34 million album streams, according to Luminate, the biggest streaming week for an album in history.

She’s broken the highest single-week mark for an album, passing Drake’s 25-track “Scorpion” with 745.92 million in 2018, his 21-track “Certified Lover Boy” with 743.67 million in 2021, and her own “Midnights” in 2022 with 549.3 million streams.

“My mind is blown. I’m completely floored by the love you’ve shown this album,” Swift wrote on X. “2.6 million are you actually serious? Thank you for listening, streaming, and welcoming Tortured Poets into your life. Feeling completely overwhelmed.”

By Monday afternoon, Swift had broken yet another record with tracks claiming the top 14 spots on the Billboard Hot 100. Previously, she was the only artist to ever monopolize the top 10 when her last album, 2022’s “Midnights” took over the charts.

So what’s in the No. 1 spot this time around? Her lead single, “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, followed by “Down Bad,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “The Tortured Poets Department,” and “So Long, London,” respectively.

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You may need to calm down after learning what Travis Kelce just called Taylor Swift in public for the first time.

On April 27, the Kansas City Chiefs star tight end helped host a charity auction for Patrick Mahomes‘ 15 and Mahomies Foundation in Las Vegas, which the “Blank Space” singer watched with the quarterback and wife Brittany Mahomes. While the list of items for bidding was set ahead of time, Kelce checked it once, then he checked it twice and oh! — that’s where the “Look What You Made Me Do” singer stepped in to offer a last-minute addition.

“I just talked to my significant other,” Kelce said onstage, emitting cheers, as seen in a fan video posted on social media. “We might have one other auction item that wasn’t on the docket. Has anybody heard of the Eras tour? There might be a fun game where there are four tickets to the New Orleans, Miami or Minneapolis dates when the Eras tour comes back to the United States. Does that fire anybody up right now?”

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Auctioneer Harry Santa-Olalla later joked that the winning bidder would “actually pay hundreds of thousands just to know Taylor Swift is actually cheering you on as you’re winning four of her tickets,” as the singer herself waved a red napkin and Kelce laughed.

Santa-Olalla later revealed on Instagram that the four “Eras Tour” tickets were sold for $80,000. “It was a truly special night supporting @15andmahomies,” he added, “which improves the lives of children in need of health & wellness resources.”

Swift, who has been dating Kelce since last summer, attended the event wearing a sleeveless, chiffon, metallic peridot green (reminiscent of her “Reputation: era) Maria Lucia Hohan “Regina” midi dress, paired with a chain necklace. Kelce wore a gray suit with no tie and appears to be growing out his hair, which he had in recent months kept buzzed short.

Swift and Kelce have been spending time together in recent weeks amid her tour hiatus. She will begin a European leg of her “Eras Tour” in France in May and will start performing in the United States again in October.

Days after releasing her newest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift posted another YouTube Short video with her hit single “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone,” playing over videos of her and her dancers rehearsing for the tour. But there’s one moment in the montage that has fans doing what they do best: speculating.

Fans will recognize many of the scenes being practiced, such as Swift’s iconic entrance from the ground, her performance of “Lavender Haze” in a coat surrounded by clouds, playing “Champagne Problems” seated at a moss-covered piano and more. But one clip, in which Swift stands in the middle of a stage with her dancers lined up behind her wearing top hats and holding canes, did not appear in the original “Eras Tour.”

“Since when do background dancers have a top hat and canes?!” one fan with the username armaisacat.1989 captioned a TikTok of the scene, adding “Taylor Swift you have some explaining to do!!”

The “Eras Tour” is a three-hour, 15-minute concert in which Swift performs songs from all of her albums since her 2006 self-titled debut record. Many — including the TODAY.com staff — have speculated whether or not the pop star would integrate “Tortured Poets Department” as another era in the show.

All will be (hopefully) be revealed when the tour begins again in Paris on May 9.

This is the second YouTube Short Swift has posted since the latest album release. On April 19, she shared glimpses of her personal life, again set to the tune of “Fortnight.”

In that compilation, her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, makes appearances with the star. The videos are in collaboration with YouTube, encouraging users to post their own “14 snippets” of their lives set to the same song.

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Don’t expect Travis Kelce to reach new heights in reality TV.

The Kansas City Chiefs tight end laughed off comparisons to the Kardashian-Jenners when he was pitched to do a reality series costarring his brother Jason Kelce, sister-in-law Kylie Kelce and mom Donna Kelce.

“Oh no,” Kelce quipped in a recent interview with “Extra,” after host Billy Bush suggested a “Keeping Up With the Kelces” series. “The reality show is in my past.”

Having already starred in the E! dating show “Catching Kelce” in 2016, years before his love story with Taylor Swift began, the 34-year-old believes one reality series is more than enough for him.

“I don’t think I’d ever do another,” the tight end continued. “I’m gonna have to be out on that.”

However, the athlete joked that other Kelce family members could be interested in letting cameras into their home.

“Who knows,” he teased, adding that his brother, sister-in-law and their kids Wyatt, 4, Elliotte, 3, and Bennett, 14 month — may want to “pick up the reality life.”

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Still, Kelce does have a few invisible strings tying him to the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” clan, which includes Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner and Kris Jenner. After all, his girlfriend recently released a song on her “Tortured Poets Department” double album that seemingly rehashed her longstanding feud with Kim Kardashian.

In “thanK you aIMee,” which spells out the SKIMS mogul’s name with capitalized letters, Swift cryptically sings, “I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool / I built a legacy which you can’t undo.”

“And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues,” the Grammy winner continues. “And one day, your kid comes home singin’ / A song that only us two is gonna know is about you.”

As for her boyfriend’s thoughts on “TTPD?” “Travis is so supportive of the entire album,” a source recently told E! News, “and loves that he is a part of Taylor’s story.”

The insider added, “He is very proud of her.”

Well, a pair of Swiftie best friends will find out, thanks to a new Taylor Swift-inspired job that comes with a free pair “Eras Tour” tickets.

Flytographer, a vacation photography company that connects travelers with local photographers around the world, is looking to hire two people to travel to London to test out a new photo tour and take pics for their Instagram. In addition to getting a $5,000 travel stipend to fly to London, the lucky duo will also get free tickets to see a Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” show in August.

The job title is Chief Memory Maker, and it involves testing Flytographer’s new Capture Your (London) Era photo tour, an experience that brings guests to locations within Taylor Swift lore to take pictures. For example, places like West End, SoHo and Louis V on Bond Street that are mentioned in Swift’s song “London Boy” are included in the tour.

In addition to a travel stipend, the pair chosen for the job will get an additional $100 to go to a salon and $100 for shopping. And the icing on the cake: They will get premium tickets to the “Eras Tour” show at Wembley Stadium on Aug. 19.

Those interested in the job can apply through the official Flytographer website until May 9, when the application window closes. Applicants will need to submit their Instagram handle, as well as their friend’s Instagram handle who they plan to bring with them. The application also asks a variety of questions, including, “Why you and your BFF should be our next Chief Memory Makers,” “What era are you and your bestie in and why?” and “What Taylor lyric best represents you and your bestie?”

And remember the position’s most important responsibility, per the application page: “Having fun with your best friend!” 

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When Taylor Swift on April 19 surprised the world with “The Tortured Poets Department,” a double album complete with 31 self-composed songs, there was one line on “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” that hit home with her — mostly female — listeners: “I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art.”

As of April 25, more than 98,000 short-form video posts on TikTok featured the lyric along with a glimpse of the user’s daily grind.

“It resonates with both millennials and Gen Zers, which I think indicates that Gen Z is feeling the same ‘girl-boss’ pressures that millennials famously grew up with,” said Casey Lewis, a social media trend forecaster.

There’s a reason so many working women, regardless of age, can relate to the 14-time Grammy winner’s lyrics, according to Eve Rodsky, the author of “Fair Play” and an expert in domestic labor and partnership equity.

“We have been gaslighted to believe that having it all means doing it all,” she said. “The good news is that people like Taylor are calling this out.”

‘Maximize every minute’: pressures Taylor sings about

Women are steadily working more, but they continue to pick up a heavier load when it comes to household chores and caregiving responsibilities, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey and analysis of government data.

“I’m a millennial and I grew up like I needed to maximize every minute of the day,” Lewis said. “It’s interesting to see [Taylor] sing about those pressures.”

In February 2024, the labor force participation rate for women between the ages of 25 and 54 hit 77.7%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s just shy of the June 2023 peak of 77.8%.

And yet, even in cases where women are now breadwinners, the division of labor at home has barely budged, the Pew report found.

“We are expected to wear many hats and achieve the same benchmarks at work, but often without the care infrastructure, employer support, or equitable division of labor in the home to make it happen,” said Heather Boneparth, co-author of The Joint Account, a money newsletter for couples. 

“But we also live in an environment of layoffs and rising costs, so not being productive isn’t really an option,” she added.

Working women are shouldering more burdens

Members of Gen Z and millennials are the first two generations that grew up alongside the internet, making them uniquely exposed to, and aware of, what’s going on in the economy, experts say.

“Part of that is thanks to the platform TikTok. Even though you’re not reading the news, you’re still seeing how the economy is impacting peers. It gives you a peek into many different worlds,” Lewis said.

At the same time, stress levels for working women have increased with long working hours, contributing to poor mental health, according to Deloitte’s most recent Women at Work report published this year.

Women are shouldering most of the responsibility for child care, domestic tasks, and, increasingly, care for aging parents — even if they’re the primary earner, the Deloitte report found.

This year, half of women who live with a partner and have children at home bear the most responsibility for child care, up from 46% last year. At the same time, 37% of women said they feel like they have to prioritize their partner’s career over their own — another increase from 2023 — in part because their partner earns more but also due to societal or cultural expectations.

“That’s going in the wrong direction,” said Deloitte’s Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer Emma Codd, who is also a working mother.

“We need to be able to talk about it,” Codd said, and Taylor Swift’s new track is a good motivator, she added.

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately characterized the labor force participation rate among women aged 25 to 54 in June 2023.

Taylor Swift may be guilty as sin of referencing her ex Matty Healy.

After the “Tortured Poets Department” singer dropped the music video for her Post Malone collaboration “Fortnight,” TikTok users pointed out the many parallels between the visuals and Swift’s ex, who fans believe is referenced quite a bit on her eleventh studio album.

For one, the film was shot in black and white — a stylistic choice “The 1975” frontman has opted to use for his own music videos, including “All I Need to Hear” and “I’m in Love With You.” Plus, both Swift and Malone are clad in long black coats with pants and loafers in one scene, which is very similar to the look Healy’s band wears in the video for their 2022 song “Part of the Band.”

And later on in the video, Swift was experimented on while strapped to a box reminiscent of the group’s official logo.

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And those aren’t the only apparent nods to the 34-year-old’s former fling, whom she rekindled her romance with in May 2023 after first being linked to the rocker back in 2014. Malone — as well as “Dead Poets Society” actors Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles — appeared in a lab coat and glasses in the “Fortnight” clip, which was “The 1975” uniform for their 2022 “At Their Very Best Tour.”

“They actually had most of the stage crew wearing the lab coats during the entire show,” fan Kelsie Carlos said in an April 22 TikTok video. “When the second leg of the tour started up, Matty started wearing these lab coats with the glasses.”

But the “Fortnight” men aren’t the only ones to pay homage to Healy. After all, the “Blank Space” singer—who confirmed her romance with Travis Kelce in September — donned a headpiece in the clip that looks like the crown Healy rocked in his “Part of the Band” visuals. To top it all off, there’s a furry friend who made a brief appearance that similarly calls back to the band’s 2022 song.

“Why the hell did they have to include this black dog running in front of her just like they did in ‘Part of the Band’?” Kelsie said in her breakdown. “This one you just can’t deny.”

Or, it could just be Swift playing up her “Anthology” track “The Black Dog,” named after a bar.

Taylor Swift thinks some things she’ll never say, but she’s explaining “The Tortured Poets Department” anyway.

Days after releasing her 11th studio album, the “Fortnight” singer gave some insight into some of her record’s more convoluted tracks—including the aforementioned single, “Clara Bow” and “Florida!!!”—in Amazon Music exclusive commentary.

Users of the streaming platform can declare, “I’m a member of ‘The Tortured Poets Department,'” on their Amazon device and switch on the special feature, during which Swift provides her insight on five songs, including the album opener featuring Post Malone.

“‘Fortnight’ is a song that exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album,” she explains. “One of which being fatalism—longing, pining away, lost dreams. It’s a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death. ‘I love you, it’s ruining my life.’ These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. It’s that kind of album.”

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Later, Swift breaks down “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” a song she produced with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff. Swift explains, as the title suggests, the song is about “being somebody’s favorite toy until they break you and then don’t want to play with you anymore.”

“Which is how a lot of us are in relationships where we are so valued by a person in the beginning, and then all of the sudden, they break us or they devalue us in their mind,” she adds. “We’re still clinging on to ‘No no, no. You should’ve seen them the first time they saw me. They’ll come back to that.'”

And the “Florida!!!” singer even delved into her duet with Florence Welch, a song that was actually inspired by her love of “Dateline.”

“People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida,” Swift posits. “They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. When you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, ‘I want a new name. I want a new life. I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all.’ And so that was the jumping off point.”

Other songs like “Clara Bow” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me” explore the difficulties that come from life in the public eye.

As she says, Swift wrote the latter song “alone, sitting at the piano in one of those moments when I felt bitter about just all the things we do to our artists as a society and as a culture.”

“There’s a lot about this particular concept on ‘The Tortured Poets Department,'” the 34-year-old continued. “What do we do to our writers, and our artists, and our creatives? We put them through hell. We watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to the point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain and we just watch what happens.”

And as for why she dedicated an entire track to a 1920s film star? Reflecting on her almost two decades of stardom, Swift calls the song a commentary on “what I’ve seen in the industry that I’ve been in over time.”

Ultimately, the track is a message to the women in the industry who forged a path for younger artists.

“That’s how we teach women to see themselves, as like, you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you,” she added. “I picked women who have done great things in the past and have been these archetypes of greatness in the entertainment industry. Clara Bow was the first ‘it girl.’ Stevie Nicks is an icon and an incredible example for anyone who wants to write songs and make music.”

But just how poetic is it? Is it even possible to close read lyrics like poems, divorced from their source material?

The Associated Press spoke to four experts to assess how Swift’s latest album stacks up to poetry.

Allison Adair, a professor who teaches poetry and other literary forms at Boston College, says yes.

“My personal opinion is that if someone writes poems and considers themself a poet, then they’re a poet,” she says. “And Swift has demonstrated that she takes it pretty seriously. She’s mentioned (Pablo) Neruda in her work before, she has an allusion to (William) Wordsworth, she cites Emily Dickinson as one of her influences.”

She also said her students told her Swift’s B-sides — not her radio singles — tend to be her most poetic, which is true of poets, too. “Their most well-known poems are the ones that people lock into the most, that are the clearest, and in a way, don’t always have the mystery of poetry.”

Taylor Swift Apr 19

‘thanK you aIMee' – Taylor Swift shades Kim Kardashian on ‘The Tortured Poets Department'

Taylor Swift Apr 19

Untangling Taylor Swift's goodbye to Joe Alwyn in ‘So Long, London'

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Taylor Swift's Apple Music clues for ‘The Tortured Poets Department,' explained

Professor Elizabeth Scala, who teaches a course on Swift’s songbook at the University of Texas at Austin, says “there is something poetical about the way she writes,” adding that her work on “The Tortured Poets Department” references a time before print technology when people sang poems. “In the earliest stages of English poetry, they were inseparable,” she says. “Not absolutely identical, but they have a long and rich history together that is re-energized by Taylor Swift.”

“It’s proper to talk about every songwriter as a poet,” says Michael Chasar, a poetry and popular culture professor at Willamette University.

“There are many things musicians and singer-songwriters can do that poetry cannot,” Adair says, citing melisma, or the ability to hold out a single syllable over many notes, as an example. Or the nature of a song with uplifting production and morose lyricism, which can create a confusing and rich texture. “That’s something music can do viscerally and poetry has to do in different ways.”

“She might say her works are poetry,” adds Scala. “But I also think the music is so important — kind of poetry-plus.”

As for current U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón? “Poetry and song lyrics aren’t exactly the same (we poets have to make all our music with only words and breath),” she wrote to the AP. “But having an icon like Taylor bring more attention to poetry as a genre is exciting.”

Scala sees Swift’s influences on “The Tortured Poets Department” as including Sylvia Plath, a confessional poet she previously drew inspiration from on songs like “Mad Woman” and “Tolerate It.”

“Fortnight” uses enjambed lines (there’s no end stop, or punctuation at the end of each line) and Scala points out the dissonance between the music’s smoothness and its lyrics, like in the line “My mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February.” “It kind of encapsulates boredom with the ordinary and then she unleashes a kind of tension and anger in the ordinary in those verses,” she says. In the verses, she says Swift “explodes the domestic,” and that fights up against the music, which is “literary.”

Swift’s lyrics, too, allow for multi-dimensional readings: “I touched you” could be physicality and infidelity in the song, Scala says, or it could mean it emotionally — as in, I moved you.

Swift has long played with rhyme and unexpected rhythm. “She’ll often establish a pattern and won’t satisfy it — and that often comes in a moment of emotional ache,” says Adair.

On “Fortnight,” it appears in a few ways. Adair points out that the chorus is more syncopated than the rest of the song — which means Swift uses many more syllables for the same beat. “It gives this rushed quality,” she says.

“Rhyming ‘alcoholic’ and ‘aesthetic,’ she plays a lot with assonance. It is technically a vowel-driven repetition of sounds,” she adds. There’s a tension, too, in the title “Fortnight,” an archaic term used for a song with contemporary devices. “There’s an allusion to treason, and some of the stuff is hyper romantic, but a lot of it is very much a kind of unapologetic, plain speech. And there’s something poetic about that.”

“From the perspective of harnessing particular poetic devices, this kind of trucks in familiar metaphors for one’s emotional state,” Chasar says of “Fortnight.”

He says the speaker is “arrested in the past and a future that could’ve been,” using a dystopic image of American suburbs as a metaphor and “cultivating a sense of numbness, which we hear in the intonation of the lyrics.”

“But the speaker is so overwhelmed by their emotional state that they can’t think of any other associations with politically charged lyrics like ‘treason’ and ‘Florida’ and ‘lost in America’ that many of us would,” he says.

The title “Fortnight,” he adds, “is totally poetic. It’s also a period of 14 days, or two weeks. For most of us ‘lost in America,’ it means a paycheck.”

“She’s making references to Greek mythology,” say Scala, like in “Cassandra,” which is part of a surprise set of songs Swift dropped Friday.

The title references the daughter of king of Troy, who foretold the city’s destruction but had been cursed so that no one believed her.

“She’s the truth teller. No one wants to believe, and no one can believe,” she says.

Swift is “thinking in terms of literary paradigms about truth telling.”

Adair looks to “So Long, London”: from the chiming, high school harmonies that open it to a plain first verse, “quiet and domestic,” she says.

“That mismatch is very poetic, because it’s pairing things from two different tonal registers, essentially, and saying they both have value, and they belong together: The kind of high mindedness and the high tradition and the kind of casual every day. That’s something the Beat poets did too, re-redefining the relationship between the sacred and profane.”

___

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

London bridge was falling down, and Taylor Swift felt every minute.

“The Tortured Poets Department” is here and, much like fans anticipated, part of the new album is dedicated to Swift’s split from Joe Alwyn in spring 2023. In fact, the 34-year-old has penned a heartbreaking tribute to the end of their six years together in “So Long, London,” a poignant part two to Taylor’s 2019 Lover track “London Boy.”

In addition to the songs’ titles, Swift has drawn a clear parallel between the two tracks by placing each as the fifth song on their respective albums. But whereas “London Boy” tells the uplifting story of a burgeoning romance — and where Midnights’ “You’re Losing Me” covers the beginning of the end — “So Long, London” brings the journey home by chronicling the relationship’s painful demise.

In the moving track, not only does Swift say goodbye to England’s capital — Alwyn’s hometown and where the two spent much time during their six years together — but she also describes trying to keep the relationship together even as she could see it coming apart.

Taylor Swift & Joe Alwyn: Romance Rewind

“I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist / I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift,” she sings in the first chorus, alluding to still seeing hope in their relationship despite the growing distance. “Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away / My spine split from carrying us up the hill.”

But as her “weary bones caught the chill,” she began to give up her efforts: “I stopped trying to make him laugh, stopped trying to drill the safe.”

And whereas “London Boy” describes a joyous jaunt through London, a kind of getting-to-know the city, “So Long, London” instead shows Swift’s feelings of growing isolation — especially in a city that is not her own.

“I didn’t opt in to be your odd man out,” she sings. “I founded the club she’s heard great things about / I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath.”

The Grammy winner goes on to chronicle the relationship’s “death,” of a sort, in an echo of “You’re Losing Me.”

Where she sings “I can’t find a pulse / My heart won’t start anymore” on “Midnights,” now she sings, “I stoppеd CPR, after all, it’s no use / The spirit was gonе, we would never come to.”

The singer also appears to allude to the time she spent with Alwyn — six years from when she was 27 to 33 — throughout the song.

“And I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free,” she sings in verse two, later adding in the bridge, “You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waiting for the proof.”

And while she sang in “You’re Losing Me” that her face had gone gray, she again alludes to color on TTPD with, “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days / And I’m just getting color back into my face.”

But despite her efforts to “go down with the ship” — or as she puts it, “My white-knuckle dying grip holding tight to your quiet resentment”—”So Long, London” comes to a close with the acknowledgement that the pair weren’t right for each other.

“So long, London / Had a good run,” she sings, “A moment of warm sun / But I’m not the one.”

And though she describes the end of the relationship with a dramatic, “Two graves, one gun,” Swift — who has since moved on with boyfriend Travis Kelce — also promises, “You’ll find someone.”

Taylor Swift‘s inner circle is declaring she should be a bigger artist — if that’s even possible.

Naturally, the “Fortnight” singer has plenty friends in her corner upon the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” April 19, and they’re all delighting in it on social media.

First up? Swift’s “Karma” duet partner Ice Spice, reshared a link to her Instagram to the surprise double album anthology that was released at 2 a.m. She later tagged the TTPD Chairman in a meme of her phone’s volume symbol turned higher than possible. Spice captured every Swiftie’s thoughts by simply writing, “!!!!!.”

Meanwhile, Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams, who have both opened for the “Miss Americana” star during her record-breaking “Eras Tour,” also reacted to the album on social media. Carpenter tagged Swift and her collaborator Jack Antonoff in her post about the track, “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,” adding, “making my damn day.” And Abrams handled tipping her hat to Swift’s other TTPD collaborator Aaron Dessener, sharing a black heart emoji along with “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift: Why Their Romance Works

For their parts, Dessener and Antonoff each shared sentimental perspectives on Swift’s 11th album. “The Bleachers” artist accompanied his post with several behind-the-scenes photos, labeling them for insight at what the duo were working on when they were taken.

“My favorite work we have made together / made in the most wild unhinged moment,” Antonoff wrote in his Instagram post. “All the pain distilled in this album and all the laughter that came out of it. will hold those days in the studio forever as the most inspiring of my life. i adore this album and the way it came together.”

Meanwhile, Dessener also shared a photo of Swift at his Long Pond studios alongside a lengthy message.

“I am forever grateful to Taylor for sharing her insane talents with and trusting me with her music,” “The National” frontman wrote. “I believe these songs are some of the most lyrically acute, intricate, vulnerable and cathartic Taylor has ever written and I am continually astonished by her skills as a songwriter and performer.”

Then, of course, there’s the 14-time Grammy winner’s besties including Keleigh Teller, who cheekily reshared “So Long, London” to her Instagram Story just before the 15 extra sounds dropped with a peace sign emoji. Sophie Turner also showed some love for the song, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” on Instagram.

Abigail Anderson Berard, Swift’s bestie who inspired her song “Fifteen,” also gave her some love, writing, “My queen has outqueened herself once again,” before sharing “But Daddy I Love Him.”

And while Blake Lively hasn’t shared her favorite track yet, she made sure to give all of Swift’s TTPD posts a double tap.

Finally, Chiefs Nation also chimed in. Swift’s fellow cheer captain Brittany Mahomes shared her Taylor’s album announcement Instagram, adding, “Let’s gooooo,” alongside a clapping emoji. Meanwhile, Travis Kelce‘s mom, Donna Kelce, more subtly supported her son’s girlfriend by liking her 2 a.m. announcement of the double album.

For Taylor Swift, some bad blood is harder to bury.

It’s a fact only proven with the release of her 11th — and a surprise double — album “The Tortured Poets Department,” in which the Grammy winner seems to take a thinly-veiled jab at Kim Kardashian, with whom Swift has had a longstanding feud.

The jab comes in the form of a track on part two of TTPD titled “thanK you aIMee.” And yes, the capitalized letters do indeed spell out the name KIM. What follows is an allegorical retelling of Swift and Kardashian’s history in the form of Swift versus a high school bully.

E! News has reached out to reps for both for comment but has not heard back.

“When I picture my hometown / There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you,” Swift sings in the first verse. “And a plaque underneath it / That threatens to push me down the stairs, at our school.”

And in the second verse, Swift slams the headlines that she alleges Kardashian caused with her actions — such as when she shared footage of the infamous 2016 phone call between Swift and Kanye West — while noting the discrepancy in their career growth at the time.

Famous Celebrity Feuds

“And it wasn’t a fair fight, or a clean kill / Each time that Aimee stomped across my gravе,” she sings. “And then she wrote hеadlines / In the local paper, laughing at each baby step I’d take.”

In December, Swift spoke to her mental health during the public fallout between her, Kardashian and West. As she told TIME, “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before.”

The song’s lyrics grow progressively more cutting — with lines such as “Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman / But she used to say she wished that you were dead” — before Swift takes perhaps her greatest swing at the SKIMS founder.

While noting that Kardashian has “perhaps reframed” their history in her mind, Swift counters that she “doesn’t think she’s changed much,” before spelling out her reason for penning the song.

“And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues,” she sings in the bridge. “And one day, your kid comes home singin’ / A song that only us two is gonna know is about you.”

But though “thanK you aIMee” spends much of its lyrics describing the adversity “Aimee” put Swift up against, the “Midnights” artist also acknowledges the ways in which it forced her to grow — hinting at the larger legacy she’s built.

“All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’,” she sings in the chorus, at the end adding, “And our town, it looks so small, from way up here / Screamed “Thank you, Aimee” to the night sky, and the stars are stunnin’ / ‘Cause I can’t forget the way you made me heal.”

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The second-to-last song on “The Tortured Poets Department,” “The Alchemy,” is one of the only pure love songs on an album that skews melancholy.

This is a story of a love that “happens once every few lifetimes,” Swift’s narrator sings. Alchemy refers to the quest in ancient and Medieval times to find a philosopher’s stone, which would make it possible to turn any substance, like lead, into gold.

In the context of relationships, like this song, alchemy could suggest the meeting of two people to form something wholly new, though something inexplicable (like, cough, love).

Beyond medieval magic, what’s especially notable is that “The Alchemy” is replete with football imagery.

Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce — to whom she has been linked since her first Chiefs game appearance in September 2023 — was not expected to be the focus of the album.

Apr 19

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Taylor Swift Apr 18

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But “The Alchemy” seemingly equates love to football and “winning streaks.” (Kelce’s Chiefs are certainly on one of those, having won the Super Bowl two years in a row.)

“There was no chance / Trying to be the greatest in the league,” Swift sings.

The chorus’ conceit is about being champions and comebacks: “When I touchdown call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown baby / I’m the one to beat.”

The bridge is a lyrical description of victory, ending with, “Where’s the trophy? / He just comes running over to me / Touchdown!”

One can’t help but remember Swift and Kelce embracing after his Super Bowl and playoffs wins.

She also mentions crowns in “The Alchemy,” as she’s done frequently in the past. In “Long Live,” she sings, “You traded your baseball cap for a crown.” Here, she’s trading a helmet.

Football has also appeared in the imagery of her music videos, often in the context of high school football players.

In “Fifteen” (2008) she sings: “But in your life, you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team.” The lyrics suggest dreaming bigger than nabbing the popular guy.

Then, her on-screen crush in the “You Belong With Me” (2008) music video is a football player. Meanwhile, she’s on the other side of the social spectrum and “on the bleachers” in a marching band uniform.

In “Mean” (2010) she imagines watching football as a passé activity, fit for her nemesis: “I can see you years from now in a bar / talking over a football game / With that same big mouth opinion / but nobody is listening.”

By the time “Stay Stay Stay” came out in 2012, Swift was dating the football player: “That’s when you came in wearing a football helmet / And said, “OK, let’s talk.”

Read on for the lyrics for “The Alchemy.”

Read the lyrics to ‘The Alchemy’

This happens once every few lifetimes

These chemicals hit me like a white wine

What if I told you I’m back?

The hospital was a drag, worst sleep that I ever had

I circled you on a map

I haven’t come around in so long

But I’m coming back so strong

So when I touch down call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team

Ditch the clowns, get the crown baby

I’m the one to beat

‘Cause the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

Hey you, what if I told you we’re cool?

That child’s play back in school is forgiven under my rule

I haven’t come around in so long

But I’m making a comeback to where I belong

So when I touch down call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team

Ditch the clowns, get the crown baby

I’m the one to beat

Cause the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

These blokes warm the benches

We’ve been on a winning streak

He jokes that “It’s heroin, but this time with an ‘E’”

‘Cause the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

Shirts off and your friends lift you up over their heads

Beer sticking to the floor, cheers chanted cause they said

There was no chance

Trying to be the greatest in the league

Where’s the trophy?

He just comes running over to me

Touchdown!

Call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team

Ditch the clowns, get the crown baby

I’m the one to beat

‘Cause the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

These blokes warm the benches

We’ve been on a winning streak

He jokes that “It’s heroin, but this time with an ‘E’”

‘Cause the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

This happens once every few lifetimes

These chemicals hit me like a white wine

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Last week, the singer released five Apple Music playlists, each featuring a selection of her own past songs, that correspond to the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) and may hint at the themes of her upcoming album.

Then, on April 13, Apple Music marked the final countdown to her 11th studio album, which drops April 19, with a string of tricky clues.

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The music service updated its bio on the X platform to read, “A word a day til the @taylorswift13 album drops,” which sent Swifties into a sleuthing frenzy.

Fans quickly figured out the secret words were hidden in song lyrics stores on Apple Music. But the words’ meanings remain a mystery — for now.

Here’s what to know about the Taylor Swift Apple Music words, and what they might mean.

What are Taylor Swift’s Apple Music words?

Word No. 1: Hereby 

After Apple Music announced the “word a day” challenge, fans scanned Swift’s Apple Music playlists. They discovered that the lyrics page for one song, “Glitch,” on the “Denial” playlist, featured random capital letters in the middle of words.

The capitalized letters, H, E, Y, B, E and R, spell “HEREBY” when unscrambled. 

Apple Music confirmed that “hereby” was the correct word the following day when they reposted the solved word from the official Taylor Nation X fan page.

Word No. 2: Conduct

On the second day of the challenge, it didn’t take long for Swifties to discover some randomly capitalized words in “Peace,” a song on Swift’s Apple Music playlist about the bargaining stage of grief.

The capitalized letters, once unscrambled, spell the word “conduct.” 

It’s unclear whether Swift means “conduct” as a verb, as in to direct or carry out, or as a noun, as in behavior.

Word No. 3: This

The song “Better Than Revenge” had the letters that spelled “this” capitalized.

Word No. 4: Post

This word was found in “Clean.”

Word No. 5: We

This word was found in “We Were Happy.”

Word No. 6: Mortem

This word was found in “Begin Again”

What is the final Apple Music message?

When unscrambled, the message says, “We hereby conduct this post mortem.” What does it mean?! Time will certainly tell.

What does do the Apple Music clues mean?

Theories are swirling about what these cryptic clues could point to. Some fans think the words “hereby” and “conduct” have echoes of a court proceeding or legal document. 

“I hereby conduct an investigation of the conduct of…” one fan spitballed on X. 

The words “hereby” and “conduct” also reminded fans of the handwritten note Swift shared on Instagram when she announced the upcoming release of “The Tortured Poets Department” in February.

That note begins with lines that could either be lyrics or verses from a poem: “And so I enter into evidence / my tarnished coat of arms. / My muses, acquired like bruises / My talismans and charms …”

One X fan connected the phrase “enter into evidence” with the legal-sounding “hereby” and “conduct.”

“yall now that we have ‘hereby conduct’ in addition to ‘enter into evidence,’” one fan wrote on X. “I’m beginning to think this whole album is going to be her reviewing what happened and presenting it like she’s in court.”

Another fan echoed this theory, wondering if the “entire aesthetic of this album is circling around a courthouse and a trial.”

Other fans thought the words could have something to do with a wedding ceremony — as in, officiants conduct weddings, and traditional wedding ceremonies sometimes include the phrase, “I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.”

“‘hereby” being formal language fit for wedding vows or court rooms,” one person wrote on X. “i’m gonna lose my mind. hereby conduct WHAT.”

Meanwhile, some fans went down a Disney rabbit hole, and wondered if there could be a subtle connection between the word “hereby” and Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” 

One of the songs on the album is called “But Daddy I Love Him,” which is almost identical to a line Ariel says to her father in the 1989 Disney movie: “Daddy, I love him!”

Later, the contract Ariel signs with the sea witch Ursula begins with the phrase “I hereby…” 

These possible subtle references to “The Little Mermaid” left some wondering whether Swift’s album could include the themes of giving away her voice in the name of love, like Ariel does.

Has Taylor Swift said anything about her Apple Music words?

Not directly — that would be too easy! — but the singer did drop another tantalizing clue on Instagram over the weekend.

“I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all,” she captioned an Instagram post that showed her holding up a clear vinyl version of the album.

This post naturally sent Swifties spiraling. 

“i wish i could un-recall how we almost had it all ?!?!?!? oh i’m not ready for this album,” one fan wrote on X.

“I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all,” another fan posted on X. “Ready to cry on April 19.”

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Paine, called “one of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry” in a recent Wall Street Journal profile, has been at Swift’s side for the past decade, cultivating the pop superstar’s image and fiercely defending Swift at every turn.

While Paine works largely behind the scenes, and declined to be interviewed in the Wall Street Journal’s recent profile of her, she has amassed her own fan base on social media, with some Swifties dubbing her a “queen” and a “legend” for the way she protects Swift.

On April 18, the day before the release of “The Tortured Poets Department,” fans namechecked Paine in posts on the X platform, alerting her to alleged leaks of Swift’s as-yet-unreleased album.

“Someone call @treepaine !” one X user wrote, responding to a post that alleged some radio stations were playing “leaked illegal tracks” from the new album.

“one thing’s for sure and that is the hand of the queen, premium pr Tree Paine, will ensure y’all leakers WILL be dealt with! get them for me queen!” another person wrote.

Read on to learn more about Swift’s powerhouse publicist.

She has been Taylor Swift’s publicist since 2014

Paine has been working with Swift for a decade. In 2014, she signed Swift as her sole client with her newly formed public relations firm, Premium PR. 

Before working with Swift, Paine worked for the Academy of Country Music, and later as senior vice president of publicity for the Christian and Country divisions of Warner Music Nashville, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

“There isn’t a publicist in NY, LA or Nashville that wouldn’t jump at an opportunity to work with someone as talented as Taylor Swift and her management team,” Paine said in April 2024, reported the New York Post.

Paine didn’t waste any time getting to work for Swift. In April 2014, she took to Twitter to shoot down a National Enquirer story allegedly claiming that Swift had turned down a duet with country singer Randy Travis. (The link to the original National Enquirer article is no longer active.)

“This story is 100% not true. Never believe the National Enquirer,” Paine wrote on Twitter, now called X. 

Since the beginning of their work relationship, Paine has been an unassuming yet constant presence alongside Swift at public events.

In pictures of Swift on the red carpet, Paine is often seen in the background, appearing to keep a watchful eye as photographers clamor for shots of her client. She also sometimes jumps in to adjust Swift’s gowns for photos.

Swift and Paine appear to have developed a close and trusting relationship over the years.

In a red carpet video clip from the premiere of her “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” concert movie in Los Angeles, Swift appears to deflect a photographer’s request with a playful reference to Paine.

Paine also praised Swift in a 2016 tweet celebrating the singer’s birthday.

“I met this lovely lady 10 yrs ago,” she wrote. “She is the finest example of true beauty inside and out.”

She has fiercely defended Swift over the years

Paine has built a reputation as Swift’s PR bulldog. 

In December 2023, Paine slammed the celebrity gossip Instagram account, Deuxmoi, for its unverified claims that Swift and her ex-boyfriend, British actor Joe Alwyn, had privately gotten married prior to their split.

“Enough is enough with these fabricated lies about Taylor from Deuxmoi,” Paine wrote on X. “There was NEVER a marriage or ceremony of ANY kind. This is an insane thing to post. It’s time for you to be held accountable for the pain and trauma you cause with posts like these.”

Paine also came out swinging in defense of Swift during the singer’s feud with Ye, then known as Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian. 

The dispute centered around Ye’s 2016 song, “Famous,” which included the lyrics, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, why? / I made that b—- famous.” 

In a June 2016 interview with GQ, Kardashian, who was married to Ye at the time, claimed Swift had approved of the lyrics in a phone conversation with the rapper.

Swift, meanwhile, alleged that the rapper had not called to ask for approval for that lyric specifically, and referred to a subsequently leaked video as evidence.

In March 2020, Kardashian tweeted, “To be clear, the only issue I ever had around the situation was that Taylor lied through her publicist who stated that ‘Kanye never called to ask for permission…’ They clearly spoke so I let you all see that. Nobody ever denied the word ‘b—’ was used without her permission.”

About an hour later, Paine refuted Kardashian’s statement on Twitter.

“I’m Taylor’s publicist and this is my UNEDITED original statement. Btw, when you take parts out, that’s editing,” she wrote. “P.S. who did you guys piss off to leak that video?”

Paine was also on hand as Swift navigated her sexual assault lawsuit against former DJ David Mueller in 2017. 

Mueller sued Swift for $3 million, claiming the singer had falsely accused him of groping her at an event in 2013. Swift countersued him for $1, and a Denver jury ruled in her favor.

While cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom, Paine could be seen outside the courthouse following the verdict. 

Many Swifties consider Tree Paine a ‘legend’

Paine may mostly work behind the scenes, but over the years, she has developed a following in her own right among diehard Swifties.

“THE DEVIL WORKS HARD BUT TREE PAINE WORKS HARDER!!!!! YAS QUEEN THANK U FOR UR SERVICE,” one fan posted on X in 2021.

“tree paine i hope both sides of your pillow are always cold! god bless!” another X user wrote in 2023.

Other fans have called Paine a “legend” and “style icon.”

One TikTok user has even posted multiple affectionate parody videos of Paine, imagining what the publicist might think and say about her experiences with Swift.

Fans seem to hold both admiration and intense curiosity about Paine — who, despite being a familiar face in Swift’s orbit, is still largely a mystery to her biggest supporters.

While she did make a brief appearance in a 2020 documentary about Swift, “Miss Americana,” Paine shares virtually nothing about herself online, posting only about her client, and she never gives interviews.

This privacy only seems to heighten fans’ fascination with her, and in a way, this seems to echo Swift’s own relationship with the public.

Swift is certainly known for her kindness and generosity to fans, but she is also famous for playfully withholding information from her supporters (case in point: her recent Apple music word clues), teasing Swifties with cryptic mysteries and Easter egg hunts. 

And while she shares intimate details about her personal life in her songs, Swift usually lets the music do the talking, rarely confirming who exactly her songs are about.

Both Swift and Paine both seem to recognize the power of sharing just enough, but not too much, and in the case of both women, the less they share, the more fans want to know.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from Today:

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The artist’s 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” drops Friday.

The lead-up to release day has been littered with puzzles, Easter eggs and other hallmarks of Swift’s ever-theorizing fan base.

Here’s what NBC News knows ahead of the release.

When does the album officially debut?

“The Tortured Poets Department” will be released Friday at 12 a.m. ET. It is currently available for preorder.

If you plan to stream “The Tortured Poets Department” right after its release, be prepared for potential delays. When Swift’s most recent brand new album, “Midnights” was released, Spotify briefly crashed because of intense demand.

How many tracks are there?

The album consists of 16 songs.

There will be four bonus tracks: “The Manuscript,” The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog.” Each bonus track will be available on separate physical album variants and won’t be on the streaming version of the album.

Historically, Swift has made vinyl exclusives available on streaming platforms several months after their physical release.

The average track length on “The Tortured Poets Department” is 4 minutes and 4 seconds — the third longest across Swift’s discography.

The longest song on the album is “But Daddy I Love Him,” which clocks in at 5 minutes and 40 seconds. “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) is the shortest at 2 minutes and 36 seconds. The length of each bonus track has not yet been revealed.

What songs are on the new album?

1. “Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)”
2. “The Tortured Poets Department”
3. “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
4. “Down Bad”
5. “So Long, London”
6. “But Daddy I Love Him”
7. “Fresh Out the Slammer”
8. “Florida!!! (Florence + the Machine)”
9. “Guilty as Sin?”
10. “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”
11. “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)”
12. “LOML”
13. “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
14. “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
15. “The Alchemy”
16. “Clara Bow”

Who else worked on the album?

Florence + the Machine and Post Malone are both featured artists on the album. The two are also credited as co-writers on their songs.

Aaron Dessner — songwriter, producer, and band member of The National and Big Red Machine — is one of two producers who worked on “The Tortured Poets Department,” along with Swift’s longtime friend and collaborator, Jack Antonoff. Dessner is credited as a songwriter on five of the 16 tracks on the standard album, while Antonoff co-wrote eight tracks.

Swift is credited as a songwriter on every track on the standard album, including two entirely self-written tracks: “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”

Why is it called “The Tortured Poets Department”?

Fans were quick to note that “The Tortured Poets Department” is the longest title for a Taylor Swift album by a large margin, a distinction previously held by her third album, “Speak Now.” Before “TTPD,” “Speak Now” was her only album title consisting of more than one word.

Speculation surrounding the new album and its uncharacteristic title has primarily revolved around Swift’s 2023 breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn after their six-year relationship.

After the album announcement, a 2022 Variety interview between Alwyn and Paul Mescal resurfaced on X. The pair revealed in the interview that they were both members of a WhatsApp group chat titled “The Tortured Man Club,” prompting some fans to draw parallels between Alwyn and Swift’s upcoming album.

The true meaning of “The Tortured Poets Department” remains to be seen, but the rollout of the album has featured references to famous poems like Charles Baudelaire’s “The Albatross,” among other literary references.

When can fans expect a new music video?

In a video of the “TTPD Timetable” posted on her Instagram on Tuesday, Swift announced she will release a music video at 8 p.m. ET Friday.

She did not specify which track the video would be for.

The announcement in the timetable was accompanied by 14 tally marks, leading some sleuthing Swifties to theorize that the video could be for the album’s first track, “Fortnight (ft. Post Malone), the title of which refers to a 14-day period, or the album’s 14th track, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

What’s the Spotify pop-up that’s in Los Angeles?

Los Angeles Swifties celebrated release week with a pop-up library in partnership with Spotify.

The three-day event ran from April 16-18 at the Grove and featured a sneak peak at some of the album’s lyrics.

Many Los Angeles Swifties celebrated the new album with a pop-up library installation in partnership with Spotify.

Fans posted videos of themselves lined up for hours to get a glimpse at the installation.

A manuscript was front and center at the installation, revealing new lyrics periodically as the pages were turned over the course of three days.

Fans took to social media to identify other potential Easter eggs in the pop-up library, such as a bust of a peace sign, a quill and fountain pens, and a globe that appeared to be pointing to Florida, the name of a track on the album.

Were there any other notable Easter eggs leading up to the release?

QR code murals appeared in cities across the world such as Melbourne, Paris, Chicago and London. Each QR code revealed a singular letter, which Swifties pieced together to spell “For A Fortnight.”

In a collaboration with Apple Music, Swift sorted some of her existing discography into thematic playlists, along with audio messages from the singer. These messages seemed to confirm some fans’ theories that the playlists mirrored the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – indicating that the new album may grapple with grief or loss.

Swift later used a song from each playlist to reveal a hidden word on Apple Music each day leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department.”

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You may need to calm down when you see how worlds collided at Coachella.

Taylor Swift and Teresa Giudice took a photo together at the 2024 festival. The “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star‘s husband Luis “Louie” Ruelas shared a pic of the women on the grounds of the event, which the “Blank Space” singer attended with boyfriend Travis Kelce.

“Two absolute QUEENS,” Ruelas wrote on Instagram on April 14. “Taylor Swift and my stunning wife @teresagiudice #girlpower #queens #blessed #coachella #doitlive #vinivia.”

Giudice, 51, wore a pink cowboy hat with silver stars while the Grammy winner sported a backwards green New Heights baseball cap, merch from the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and brother Jason Kelce‘s podcast.

Giudice’s costar Jennifer Aydin commented on Ruelas’ photo, the first known public pic of Swift with a “Real Housewives” star, “Ok – I finally jealous of something!!”

Last August, Aydin and Giudice expressed their desire to see the singer after learning she was in New Jersey for friend Jack Antonoff’s wedding to Margaret Qualley.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: Romance Rewind

“Taylor Swift,” the latter reality star said in a video posted on her costar’s Instagram Story. “I would love to hang out with you.”

Aydin added, “Yeah, me and Teresa! Call me. Love, love, love you. And Louie too!”

The wife of Bill Aydin added, “And Bill too! We could triple date!”

Giudice is not the only “Real Housewives” star to have bumped into Taylor Swift over the years. Most recently, in February, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Sutton Stracke revealed on Bravo‘s “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” that she once met the singer at the Met Gala.

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Taylor Swift is taking her relationship to new heights.

The singer turned Coachella 2024 into a date night with boyfriend Travis Kelce, as the couple was seen dancing in the crowd and cheering on friends Jack Antonoff and Ice Spice during their April 13 performances.

And proving karma is indeed her boyfriend, Swift wore a sweet accessory that nodded to her romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end — a green baseball cap reading “New Heights, the podcast” the player hosts with brother Jason Kelce.

In addition to supporting the athlete’s business venture, the singer’s hat holds special significance for the couple, who connected last summer after Kelce tried to shoot his shot with the “Love Story” artist on that very podcast.

“Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she told TIME in December. “We started hanging out right after that.”

And the cute show of support wasn’t the only way the couple, both 34, kept close during Coachella.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: Romance Rewind

At one point, the pair were escorted into the crowd, where he kept his arms wrapped around the singer as she grooved to the beat when Ice played their song “Karma.”

After the show, the lovers headed to the Neon Carnival after-party, holding hands while walking through the grounds alongside Ice Spice. Kelce — decked out in blue striped trousers, a purple flannel and a Happy Gilmore hat — had a huge grin on his face during the outing with Swift, who rocked a dark ‘fit, featuring a leather jacket and Stella McCartney crossbody bag.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Even Travis Kelce is surprised by how his paralleled lines intertwined with Taylor Swift.

Six months after his relationship with the “Karma” singer became public, the guy on the Chiefs is still shocked at how favorably the dominoes cascaded in a line for him.

“I don’t know how I did it because she wasn’t into sports,” he explained on the April 10 episode of “New Heights.” “So I don’t know how the f–k I did it.”

However, the episode’s guest, Dave Burd, known by his rap name Lil Dicky, cheekily provided the answer, “Well, you did it because you called her out on your multimedia platform.”

And Kelce conceded, “I know exactly how I did it.”

Of course, Burd and Kelce were referring to the infamous July 2023 episode of “New Heights“—when Kelce playfully poked at Swift blowing him off during her Kansas City stop of the Eras Tour, where he had planned to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it.

Celebrities Attending Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour

“I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings,” he said at the time. “So I was a little butt-hurt I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her.”

While Swift didn’t notice that Kelce showed up to her party, she evidently found the gesture fearless. In fact, she later said it was what lit the fuse on their relationship, describing the situation to TIME magazine as “metal as hell.”

Fast forward to way more than 300 conversations about Swift and Kelce later, and the NFL tight end is still living his best life.

“It’s fun,” he added on the April 10 podcast episode. “I’m having a blast in life, baby. Just flying high. Enjoying it all. Bringing new lives to the football world. Opening the football world up to new things as well.”

Dave also encapsulated the Swiftie point of view with his own comments on the relationship.

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“I think it’s the best thing ever,” he told Travis and his brother Jason Kelce. “Not that you want to spend time talking about it for the five-thousandth time, but I just think there’s something that makes everyone feel like the world is kind of like high school. Where the most popular pop star, beloved musician somehow met your most popular beloved athlete and they actually fell in love.”

As he put it, “Anyone who hates on it is a bitter loser—there’s something classic about it.”

In honor of Easter on March 31, Taylor Nation, Swift’s official fan account, posted an adorable throwback video of the pop superstar on Instagram.

The video was filmed on March 14, 1990, just a few weeks before Swift celebrated her first-ever Easter.

Swift, who would have been 3 months old at the time, wears a bunny costume in the clip and waves her arms at the camera while her mom, Andrea Swift, holds her. 

“Dropping easter eggs since 1989,” Taylor Nation playfully wrote in the caption before asking fans to share their favorite Easter eggs from Swift’s different eras. 

While many fans obliged and reminisced about the creative hints throughout the years, others, in true Swiftie fashion, were skeptical.

“This seems like a normal post to celebrate easter…yet I feel like there are DEFINITELY easter eggs in this post…idk,” one said. 

Fans wondered if the Instagram post was somehow an Easter egg itself, as it comes just a few weeks before Swift is set to release her next album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” on April 19. 

Another asked, “TAYLOR? is this an easter egg? march 14? what does it mean?”

One Swiftie perfectly summed up the shared state of confusion. “Posting about easter eggs, is this an easter egg?” the fan wrote. 

It’s understandable that Swifties are anxiously awaiting new information about “The Tortured Poets Department.” Swift has revealed few details about the new project since she first announced it at the 2024 Grammys in February. 

“I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand new album comes out April 19,” she said while accepting the award for best pop album for “Midnights.” 

Shortly after leaving the stage, she uploaded the album’s black-and-white cover to Instagram. 

“All’s fair in love and poetry…” she cheekily wrote in the caption. 

Leading up to the release, she has also unveiled the track list, bonus tracks and different editions of the album. But, she hasn’t released a single or clues about the genre. 

Now that the release date is less than a month away, Swifties are keeping their eyes peeled for any hints about the new era.  

This article first appeared on TODAY.com. Read more from TODAY:

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Fans of Taylor Swift can hear her masterpieces even in the silence.

In fact, an eight second video from Swift’s upcoming “The Tortured Poets Department” album that has no sound skyrocketed to the top of the iTunes Top Videos chart on March 18.

While the video, titled “All’s fair in love and poetry,” itself didn’t have any vocals, it did include a backdrop with a description that the singer revealed in February when she announced the upcoming album, which hints at its vibe.

“And so I enter into evidence,” the blurb reads. “My tarnished coat of arms. My muses, acquired like bruises. My talismans and charms. The tick, tick, tick of love bombs. My veins of pitch-black ink. All’s fair in love and poetry. Sincerely, the Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department.”

The burst in popularity for the silent video did not unnoticed by fans, as one joked on X, formerly Twitter, “My favorite thing about Swifties is we can make static noise go number 1 like it’s nobody’s business.”

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: Romance Rewind

Along with the technical mishap, fans of the “Karma” singer also noticed that her upcoming album, out April 19, is now available to pre-save on Apple Music. As one fan quipped, “My first agenda this morning: pre-adding.”

And while her latest chart-topping feature may come as a surprise, going number 1 for “Sweet Nothing” is nothing new for the pop star. Back in 2014, just ahead of the original 1989 drop, eight seconds of static noise, titled “Track 3,” launched to the top of the iTunes Canada chart.

Later that year, Swift expressed her shock at the marvelous tune topping the charts.

“It was a mistake,” she explained on Jimmy Kimmel‘s late night show. “It wasn’t a song they ended up posting—it went number one and I was like, ‘What is going on?'”

There is still a little over a month until fans are out of the woods as to what the sound of Taylor’s upcoming music will really be, but the 34-year-old has assured her fans from the very beginning of her career that she will never change, but she’ll also never stay the same.

Singapore is a key member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-nation bloc known as ASEAN. Its three-day summit was expected to focus on member Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis and conflicts in the South China Sea.

Instead, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was grilled on the summit’s sidelines about a lucrative and exclusive deal his city-state struck with Swift that prevents the singer from taking her Eras Tour to any other stop in Southeast Asia.

Swift is performing six concerts from March 2 to 9 in Singapore, and some Southeast Asian neighbors complain that the Singapore deal deprives them of the tourism boom her concerts bring to hosts. Her Eras Tour shattered records when it reportedly surpassed $1 billion last year, and her film adaptation of the tour quickly took No. 1 at the box office and became the highest-grossing concert film to date.

The Singaporean leader confirmed Tuesday that Swift was provided with “certain incentives” in exchange for making Singapore her only Southeast Asian destination on her Eras Tour. Lee defended the deal at a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a self-professed Swiftie whose Spotify Wrapped list boasted Taylor Swift as his second most streamed artist of 2023. Albanese is hosting the summit in Melbourne, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Australia becoming ASEAN’s first external partner.

Lee did not reveal the cost of the exclusive deal, which was paid for from a government fund established to rebuild tourism after COVID-19 disruptions. He also did not directly answer when asked if he had encountered bad blood among other leaders due to the deal, instead suggesting that if Singapore hadn’t struck an exclusive deal, a neighboring country might have done so.

“It has turned out to be a very successful arrangement. I don’t see that as being unfriendly,“ Lee said.

Thailand’s Prime Minister, Srettha Thavisin, brought attention to the deal in February with a public claim that a promoter told him the Singaporean government subsidized the concerts with around $2 million to $3 million per show with a condition that the artist not play anywhere else in Southeast Asia.

Srettha said that if he had known about the deal before, he was confident he would be able to pull off something similar.

But Thailand doesn’t hold it against Singapore, said Prommin Lertsuridej, the Secretary-General of the Prime Minister. He told reporters in a group interview Monday that Thailand took what Singapore did as an example, and while Thailand already has some laws in place to allow such incentive packages, the government is working to remove red tape and make Thailand a more attractive venue for international events.

“We learn from each other,” Prommin said, adding that he admired Singapore for being able to come up with and achieve this “good business idea.”

In February, Indonesian Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno took to Instagram to apologize to Swift’s fans, saying: “International music events, such as Taylor Swift concerts, do have a big impact on a country’s economy. But I’m sorry Swifties, Taylor Swift hasn’t stopped by in Indonesia yet. Bought out by Singapore. However, this is a lesson for us.”

Raisa Christy, a 37-year-old fan living in Jakarta, Indonesia, said she regretted that Swift’s closest stop by far was in Singapore. However, she believes it’s the only spot in the region that has the capabilities and infrastructure that meet Swift’s standards.

Lee said that, while he didn’t know what Australia’s arrangements were, he expected it similarly made “mutually acceptable, sensible arrangements” with Swift when she performed in Melbourne and Sydney — one of which Australia’s prime minister attended — before flying to Singapore.

Swift’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other questions at the news conference covered increasing tensions in the South China Sea, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the likelihood of China joining in a regional free trade pact.

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Associated Press writers Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed.

The simple message to vote might not seem impactful, but this comes from the world’s most famous pop star — with 282 million Instagram followers.

“I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power,” Swift posted on Instagram. “If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote today.”

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Voters in 16 states and American Samoa are holding nominating contests in the biggest day yet of the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

Swift has generally steered clear of political battles, no small feat in today’s bad blood sport of red vs. blue, and remained popular across many demographic lines.

She has been vocal in the past about voter registration and her advocacy on this push has previously spiked numbers.

Her first notable political moves came in 2018 in Tennessee, when she endorsed Democrat Phil Bredesen, who lost that U.S. Senate race to Republican Marsha Blackburn, and Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat who won reelection to the U.S. House.

She went on to endorse Joe Biden in his 2020 victory over incumbent Donald Trump.

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Taylor Swift‘s family connection is someone fans know all too well.

Ancestry announced on March 4 that the “The Tortured Poets Department” singer is related to Emily Dickinson.

How exactly? Long story short, the genealogy website says Swift and Dickinson are sixth cousins, three times removed.

“Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut),” a press email for Ancestry states. “Taylor Swift’s ancestors remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in northwestern Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line.”

Followers may be enchanted by this news considering Swift has referenced Dickinson before.

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Celebrities Attending Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour

“If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain,” the 14-time Grammy winner said upon receiving the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade honor from the Nashville Songwriters Association International in 2022, “that’s me writing in Quill genre.”

It’s also been speculated that Swift’s 2020 album “evermore” drew inspiration from the poet. Not only was it announced on Dickinson’s Dec. 10 birthday, but as a social media user pointed out at the time, the name could be a nod to how the writer ended her poem “One Sister have I in our house” with the word “forevermore.”

The “Cruel Summer” singer knew the way to surprise and delight boyfriend Travis Kelce‘s Kansas City Chiefs teammates was to put her baking skills to good use. So, during the NFL season, the pop star whipped up some pop tarts as a treat for the football players.

“She likes to cook, so she made the offensive linemen these homemade pop tarts,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid shared on NFL on NBC Feb. 27, hinting that Swift clearly knew the way to their hearts. “It was over. She knew right where to go.”

And although Reid unfortunately didn’t get one of the treats—joking that the offensive linemen “definitely” didn’t save him a bite—he appreciated that it was a way for Swift to try and “fit in” with the team.

It wasn’t the first time that Swift — whose love of baking is legendary — has traded a gown shaped like a pastry for actual pastries for Kelce. The 34-year-old even baked some cinnamon rolls for one of the tight end’s pregame parties in October.

And perhaps Swift’s baked goods were just what the Chiefs needed to help cinch their 2024 Super Bowl victory.

After all, Coach Reid had nothing but praise for her.

“I knew her dad and her mom, good, solid people. I met her when she was young,” he explained. “And she’s so grounded for who she is.”

In fact, her popularity has not gone unnoticed by the 65-year-old, who added, “Since the queen has passed away, she might be the most famous woman in the world. But she handles it.”

And as for the constant discussions around Swift and Kelce’ relationship? Reid noted that the reactions from the “dads, Brads, and Chads,” as Swift previously called their critics, was not a distraction for any of the players.

“It was never an issue, honestly,” he said. “Kelce handled it great. She handled it great. And it was never an issue.”

Ben McDonald said he provided police with a statement alleging that Scott Swift assaulted him at the Neutral Bay Wharf, where the father and daughter had just come ashore from a yacht.

The New South Wale Police Force media office confirmed that police were investigating the alleged assault of a 51-year-old man by a 71-year-old man at 2:30 a.m. Police did not release names, in accordance with their policy for such allegations.

Taylor Swift’s representative told E! News that two individuals “were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor” at the time. Her rep also said that the two were “grabbing at her security personnel and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water.” 

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McDonald said media had been waiting to photograph the star as she walked with her entourage from a jetty to two waiting cars.

“There were about four or five security there and at one point, one of the American security started shoving his umbrella into me and my camera and then Taylor got in her car,” McDonald told the AP.

“Someone else came running at me and punched me in the left side of my face. Initially, I thought it was an Australian security that was trying to be the hero of the moment in the front of the Americans, but as it turned out it was her father,” McDonald added.

McDonald said he realized that his alleged assailant was not a part of the security detail after seeing a photo of him holding Swift’s hand while reviewing photos from the evening. McDonald later identified Scott Swift from an online picture.

Taylor Swift left the country on a private jet Tuesday, after more than 600,000 fans saw the Australian leg of her Eras Tour at seven Australian stadium concerts.

The veteran paparazzo said he decided to report the attack to police despite not being seriously injured.

“It was just a punch in the chops. It’s a little tender, but I don’t have any bruising and it didn’t require medical assistance,” McDonald said.

“In 23 years, I haven’t been assaulted and punched in the chops, particularly by the talent’s dad,” he added,

McDonald said there had been no cause for violence.

“We didn’t go rushing down the jetty. We didn’t go rushing to the back of the boat. We waited for her to come up. Kept it very civil,” he said.

“But no, they had to be (expletives) and put the umbrellas up and umbrellas over her and then shove the umbrellas into our faces and then make out that we’re the ones making contact with them,” he added.

The superstar, who’s boyfriend is Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce, made two $50,000 donations to a GoFundMe page set up to provide “vital financial support” to the family of KKFI DJ Lisa “G.” A representative for Swift confirmed the donations to NBC News, noting the crowdfunding site only accepts a maximum of $50,000, so she donated twice.

“Sending my deepest sympathies and condolences in the wake of your devastating loss,” the singer wrote on the page.

The 43-year-old mother of two attended the parade with her husband and her adult son, a die-hard Kansas City sports fan who also was shot.

The Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan Memorial page was set up Thursday afternoon, with a goal of raising $75,000, according to her niece Michaela Lopez. More than 2,000 people have contributed to the fund, which has received more $218,000 as of Friday morning. 

“[Lisa Lopez-Galvan] was an amazing mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, and friend to so many,” a statement on the GoFundMe site said. “We ask that you continue to keep her family in your prayers as we grieve the loss of her life. This fund will help provide vital financial support to her family as they process this unthinkable tragedy. Any amount is appreciated.”

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Swift’s donations appeared to have been made overnight, just as the “Cruel Summer” singer was kicking off the Australian leg of her Eras Tour in Melbourne.

Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” began co-hosting “Taste of Tejano” in March 2022, spinning records on Tuesdays from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., according to her bio on the station’s website. For Lopez-Galvan, music was “life and a source of happiness,” her bio said, and she also worked as a DJ, playing at weddings, quinceañeras and at an American Legion bar and grill, mixing Tejano, Mexican and Spanish music with R&B and hip hop.

At least 22 people, including 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15, were hit by gunfire in Wednesday shooting, which unfolded at the end of the Chiefs’ rally to celebrate the team’s  Super Bowl win, authorities said. Thousands of fans were gathered downtown when shots rang out and terrified paradegoers ran for cover at yet another high-profile public event in the U.S. marred by gun violence.

Police said Thursday they had detained three juveniles but released one who they determined wasn’t involved in the shooting, leaving two in custody. Police Chief Stacey Graves said Wednesday that several firearms were recovered and that investigators were working to determine whether other people were involved.

Police did not release more details about those who were detained or the weapons seized.

Investigators urged witnesses, people with cellphone footage and victims of the violence to call a dedicated hotline.

In a message posted on social media, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said she will use every tool at her disposal to get answers. “We will get through this together,” she said. “We will heal together. And we will fight together.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kanye West is shutting down this rumor.

After it was reported that he bought a ticket in front of Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl suite and she then had him removed, the rapper’s rep told Forbes, “This is a completely fabricated rumor. It is not true.”

As for how the rumor got started, former NFL player Brandon Marshall alleged West picked a seat in front of Swift’s suite at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium knowing the cameras would be on her as she cheered on boyfriend Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chief in their big game against the San Francisco 49ers on Feb. 11.

“He had a mask on with his logo on the mask, right? Typical Kanye,” the wide receiver said on a recent episode of I Am Athlete’s Paper Route podcast. “Taylor Swift gets pissed off. She boom boom makes a call or two. Everybody’s involved. He gets kicked out the stadium….He was trying to leverage her celebrity.”

E! News has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment but has yet to hear back.

Photos: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Celebrate Kansas City Chiefs’ 2024 Super Bowl Win

It’s no secret the two have a long history—one that dates back to when West interrupted Swift during her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs. There was also that Snapchat video his ex Kim Kardashian posted in 2016 that appeared to show Swift and West talking about his song “Famous” on a phone call. (Refresher: Kardashian previously said she felt like she had to defend West and Swift maintained West never told her about the lyric “I made that bitch famous.”)

In her Time Person of the Year cover story, Swift reflected on how that moment felt like “a career death” at the time.

“You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” the singer told the magazine in the December interview. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”

Needless to say, that wasn’t the end of Swift’s career—with her continuing on her successful Eras Tour, winning her history-making fourth Album of the Year Grammy for Midnights and getting ready to release her new album The Tortured Poets Department.

And to see photos of her and more stars at the Super Bowl, keep reading.

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“We’re all wondering: Will Taylor show up?” the paralegal said during a trip to the Chiefs-bedecked Union Station, where Wednesday’s parade will end. Joining Stauch was her 11-year-old daughter, Rilynn, and two of Rilynn’s friends.

As commentators carefully compared rushing totals during the Chiefs’ come-from-behind, 25-22 overtime win over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night, Rilynn was doing her own calculations. How many times did the CBS broadcast cut to Taylor Swift as her boyfriend Travis Kelce made several key plays?

Rilynn, who counted 13 shots of Swift, dreams of catching a glimpse of the pop superstar and Kelce during the parade festivities, which coincide with Valentine’s Day. And she just might have talked her mom into taking her.

“I think everyone will go crazy,” said Rilynn, who wore a “Karma is My Tight End” T-shirt. That’s a reference to Swift changing a lyric in her song “Karma” from “Karma is the guy on the screen” to “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs” during a concert in Buenos Aires. She also owns a “Go Taylor’s Boyfriend” T-shirt.

Swift has not commented on her plans. But it would be a tight scheduling feat. She has to be in Melbourne, Australia, which is 17 hours ahead of Kansas City, by 6 p.m. Friday for the first of three scheduled concerts on her Eras Tour. And the flight itself takes about 17 hours.

School cancellation announcements began just minutes after Kelce, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs became the first team since Tom Brady and the New England Patriots two decades ago to defend their title.

“LET’S HAVE A PARADE WEDNESDAY!!!” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, after the nail-biter ended, the post coming not long after he commented, “Take them heart pills.”

Unseasonably warm temperatures in the 60s Fahrenheit (15-20 Celsius) — and the possibility, remote though it might be, of a Swift appearance — are expected to boost attendance. Businesses along the parade path are turning the day into a viewing party for their workers.

Crews already are blocking off streets at Union Station, where the 2-mile (3.22-kilometer) route will conclude with speeches. By midday Monday, the stage where the team will deliver its speeches was partially constructed, a giant Chiefs’ flag waving outside.

Earlier this month, the Kansas City Council authorized the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission to spend nearly $1 million on the festivities. Besides Valentine’s Day. the parade also coincides with Ash Wednesday, which is the traditional start of Lent.

The Rev. Poese Vatikani is hoping to make it, although Ash Wednesday duties could complicate his plans.

He had a conversion of sorts when he moved from Honolulu to Missouri. A former 49ers fan, he adopted the Chiefs, even donning a Mahomes wig on the pulpit Sunday, his congregation a sea of red.

“This is how life is. Do not give up,” the senior pastor at Carrollton United Methodist Church said, sharing his plans for a sermon about the win, as he stopped at Union Station to take pictures with his wife, Doris Vatikani, on Monday. Both were decked out in red. Doris, who celebrated the victory with a hula dance, wore a flower behind her ear.

After decades without a championship, the city is gaining experience with victory parades. Five seasons ago, the Chiefs defeated the 49ers for the team’s first Super Bowl championship in 50 years. That followed the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series in 2015, the city’s first baseball championship in 30 years. That year, fans abandoned their cars on the side of the highway so they could walk to the celebration.

Then, last year, the Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 and prophetically vowed they would be back for more.

The latest victory parade will start at 11 a.m. and last about 90 minutes. But if past years are a guide, getting a prime spot will be no easy feat. Fans often sleep overnight or arrive before sunrise.

Feb 13

Taylor Swift shares hilarious video of her parents at the club after Chiefs win Super Bowl

Taylor Swift Feb 12

White House invites Chiefs after Super Bowl win and doesn't rule out Taylor Swift joining them

Heather Smith, 39, braved it last year. And she is pondering doing so again after letting her 9-year-old son stay up late to watch the nailbiter of a finish. On Monday, she pulled him and his 6-year-old sister out of school, taking them to Union Station to pose in front of a Chiefs sign.

“It was just really fun,” said Smith, who moved to Kansas City from Minnesota just as the wave of championships began. “We tried to hold the kids up as much as we could so they could see. But it was just cool to be a part of it. It’s been really cool the the last nine years to be down here between the Royals and the Chiefs.”

Asked at Monday’s press briefing if the pop star could come along as a “plus one” when the team visits the White House to celebrate its second Super Bowl title in as many seasons, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded, “That’s going to be up to the Chiefs, and obviously their decision to figure out who’s going to come with them.”

“I can’t speak to attendance and who will be here,” Jean-Pierre added.

Swift is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and celebrated on the field after his team beat the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime on Sunday in Las Vegas. She has been the subject of intense media coverage throughout the season, and even sparked anger among some conservatives who spread baseless claims that Swift is part of an elaborate plot to help Democrats win the November election because she could ultimately endorse President Joe Biden‘s reelection bid.

Super Bowl Feb 12

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce bask in afterglow of Chiefs' Super Bowl win with on-field kiss

Taylor Swift Feb 11

Watch ‘icon' Taylor Swift chug a drink on the Super Bowl jumbotron

Biden’s supporters have made light of such suggestions. The president’s personal account even deadpanned on X immediately after the Super Bowl’s game-winning catch, “Just like we drew it up” over an image of “Dark Brandon” — a meme featuring Biden with lasers for eyes.

Jean-Pierre also got in on the act, opening Monday’s White House briefing by saying she wanted “to extend a big congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on their third Super Bowl win in just five seasons, and also congratulations to all the Swifties out there.”

“The president looks forward to welcoming them back once again to the White House to celebrate their latest victory,” she said.

When pressed on whether the players would be allowed to bring guests, Jean-Pierre said she wasn’t sure of the protocol.

“That’s a good question. I can’t answer that right now. But, look, we are looking forward to having them here, the Chiefs,” she said.

The White House and Biden’s supporters aren’t the only ones blurring the lines between politics and pop stars.

Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican presidential primary, posted online ahead of the Super Bowl that, if Swift were to endorse Biden, it would be “disloyal to the man who made her so much money.” Trump continued that he was “responsible for the Music Modernization Act,” which Congress approved in 2018 with strong bipartisan support.

The 14-time Grammy winner shared a box with her friends, Blake Lively and Ice Spice, and the Kelce family, including Travis’ mom, Donna Kelce and his brother, Jason Kelce.

Swift was first spotted on screen with Lively as the two swayed to Post Malone’s pregame performance of “America the Beautiful.”

The camera captured the “Anti-Hero” singer with expressive reactions throughout the game, particularly when Kelce was making a play.

Swift was also seen on the jumbotron at Allegiant Stadium chugging a drink, but the moment wasn’t broadcast on CBS.

In the second quarter, Swift was gasping as Patrick Mahomes completed a 53-yard pass to Mecole Hardman at the 10-yard line. And with nine seconds remaining in the fourth, Swift was repeatedly saying “omg” after Mahomes hit Kelce for a 22-yard gain, leading to a Chiefs’ field goal and sending the game into overtime.

After Kansas City scored the winning touchdown, Swift was seen jumping up and down, celebrating with a group hug.

Swift stood with Donna Kelce as the Lombardi Trophy was presented to the Chiefs. She smiled and clapped as Travis Kelce sang Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” from the podium.

After reuniting on the field, the two embraced and shared a game-winning kiss. Both Kelce and Swift seemed to be near tears, with Swift telling her boyfriend the game was “unbelievable.”

The Chiefs defeated the 49ers 25-22 to bring home the championship for the second year in a row, the first team to go back-to-back in almost 20 years.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• 49ers’ decision in overtime questioned after Chiefs score decisive touchdown
• Chiefs’ Isiah Pacheco proudly displays Puerto Rican flag after Super Bowl win
• NBA, MLB and PGA roll out apps for Apple Vision Pro

Taylor has entered the building for Super Bowl 58 and she’s not alone.

Swift arrived at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas Sunday afternoon carrying her red Kansas City Chief’s jacket over her shoulder.

She was seen talking and walking alongside friends Blake Lively, Ice Spice, stylist and designer Ashley Avignone, and her mom, Andrea.

Swift is on hand to watch Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, whom she has been dating since the first couple of weeks of the season.

The trio is watching the big game inside a luxury suite with several other people, including her boyfriend’s big brother, Jason, who is sporting Chiefs overalls.

She performed in Japan on Saturday night before a flight across nine time zones and the international date line to reach the U.S. and ultimately Vegas for the Super Bowl.

Check out more celebrities at Super Bowl LVIII here.

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The “Karma” singer, who is at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas to cheer on her boyfriend and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, was shown on the stadium’s jumbotron chugging her drink.

What was in the cup remains unknown.

Seated next to Swift is longtime friend Ashley Avignone, who appears to be downing her drink as well, but the video cuts off before she finishes.

Also seated behind Swift is Travis Kelce’s brother Jason Kelce, who seemingly applauds the “Midnights” singer as she slams down her empty cup.

Super Bowl Feb 11

Andra Day delivers powerful rendition of Black national anthem before Super Bowl

Super Bowl Feb 11

Travis Kelce bumps coach Andy Reid during Super Bowl sideline tirade

Swift may have been showing her boyfriend’s brother that she can keep up with his partying ways. During the Chiefs-Bills AFC divisional-round playoff game three weeks ago, Jason Kelce went viral for his shirtless antics.

After Travis Kelce scored a touchdown during the game in freezing cold Buffalo, New York, in which Swift was also in attendance, Jason Kelce was caught shirtless in his suite hilariously celebrating the moment.

Jason Kelce also jumped into the stands and began drinking beers with fans during his celebration.

“Buffalo is awesome, the energy is contagious. Such an incredible experience!!” he captioned with a photo on X that showed a text message reading, “Ellie said ‘Dads boobs are showing’!” referring to one of his three young daughters.

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As a child, I dreamed of attending the renowned Ivy League school. And now, more than a decade since graduating high school, here was my chance … in a subject I know all too well.

Harvard’s new English class “Taylor Swift and Her World” is the brainchild of Professor Stephanie Burt — a Harvard and Yale alum, literary critic, poet, writer … and massive Swiftie. It’s almost as if the self-proclaimed head of Harvard’s “Tortured Poets Department” was in Swift’s ear ahead of the pop star’s newly announced album (“The Tortured Poets Department”). Safe to say it will be required reading — or should I say listening? — for the class come April.

Monday mornings are quiet on most college campuses, even Harvard, as students slowly emerge from lively weekends spent with friends. But students arrived noticeably early to the noon class.

The twice-a-week, 75 minute-long lecture kicked off with some impromptu singing when one of the teaching assistants started playing Swift’s 2008 song “Love Story” on the piano.

The room of more than 200 people — from different years and majors — came to life in this bucket-list worthy class. Swifties have a reputation for being welcoming, and this class was no exception. Sitting front and center, I joined in, belting out, “I’ll be waiting, all there’s left to do is run” with my arms wrapped around neighboring students.

Already, this was proving to be a college class unlike any other. 

To those of you rolling your eyes, know that this class is far more than a dance party and series of clever puns. Now, look what you made me do. 

Rather, the class is a deep dive into Swift’s sweeping catalog and its cultural impact, closely examining themes and writing mechanisms that parallel literary greats from decades before. 

Willa Cather, James Weldon Johnson and William Wordsworth are all on the reading list, along with watching Swift’s documentary “Miss Americana” and her 2022 NYU commencement speech. 

“We will learn how to study fan culture, celebrity culture, adolescence, adulthood and appropriation; how to think about white texts, Southern texts, transatlantic texts, and queer subtexts,” according to the syllabus, which is riddled with lyric references. “We will learn how to think about illicit affairs, and hoaxes, champagne problems and incomplete closure.”

This week, the class was dissecting Swift’s second album, “Fearless,” before moving on to subsequent albums later.

As a songwriter, Swift is what poet and literary theorist Allen Grossman “calls a hermeneutic friend,” Burt said to the class.

Umm … a what?

As if she heard my thoughts, Burt quickly clarified the “special English professor word.” She explained that in the song “Fifteen,” Swift establishes herself as the listener’s friend, someone who knows what you’re going through and can help guide you, like a fairy godmother. “Only not a god, not a mother, and not a fairy,” Burt quipped, to which the class chuckled. 

Even through complicated topics, the class’s energy never dulled. 

Swift had their attention … and Burt’s occasional lyrical dancing also helped. While she sang the lines, “Marry me Juliet, you’ll never have to be alone,” she got down on one knee.

Burt says the class situates Swift within a broader literary tradition.

“It is to connect these things to other artists who are currently more popular and to say, ‘If you like this, try that, if you enjoy studying this, try that,’” she says. “And that is how works of art survive.”

It’s that energizing effect that’s made the history-making dynamo academia’s new favorite subject — from a Swift-inspired psychology class at Arizona State University to an entrepreneurship course at UC Berkeley. 

Harvard’s Taylor Swift class saw so much demand, Burt sought out more teaching assistants on X, prompting responses from hundreds of eager Swifties. 

The TAs, whose expertise ranges from performance studies to copyright law and American literature, help run break-out discussion groups once a week and occasionally are featured in a lecture.

Matthew Jordan replied to Burt’s viral tweet when he was visiting Boston and scored the job with the help of his social media videos breaking down music theory of Swift’s critically acclaimed discography.

He was met by applause as he revealed his “Junior Jewels” shirt beneath his button-up, a reference to Swift’s “You Belong With Me” music video, before diving into the timeless principles of songwriting … like the use of the word you.

Jordan proceeded to go through all 13 of Swift’s songs on “Fearless” to point out how quickly you emerges.

• “Fifteen” — First line.
• “Breathe” — Third word.
• “You Belong With Me” — First word.

He explained Swift’s use of “you” is all about getting the listener engaged and feeling part of the song. She’s singing about herself — and about the person hearing her song.

There are no exams in this course. But students do have to write evidence-based academic essays comparing Swift’s discography to other literary works, as well as complete assignments that could take a creative form such as song or stage design.

A senior at Harvard told me she stayed up until 5 a.m. that day working on her thesis, but missing this class was out of the question. 

That is the power of Swift.  

And our trip to Harvard wouldn’t be complete without trading friendship bracelets, a Swiftie tradition popularized during the Eras Tour. 

I handed one student a bracelet spelling TODAY, and in return, she slipped a bracelet on my wrist that read “Fearless.”

In the words of Swift, I don’t know how it gets better than this.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Adele says Taylor Swift’s NFL game attendance makes it ‘more enjoyable to watch’
  Taylor Swift wraps up Tokyo ‘Eras Tour’ stop with more than 24 hours to spare before the Super Bowl
• Every time Taylor Swift went to a Kansas City Chiefs game — and what happened

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“She’s coming! She’s coming! We’re excited,” Hunt told People.com in Las Vegas on Saturday.

The internet has been speculating if Swift could make it to Las Vegas in time for the big game ever since Kelce and the Chiefs punched their ticket nearly two weeks ago.

The “Cruel Summer” singer finished a series of Eras Tour concerts in Tokyo, Japan, and internet sleuths had speculated a private jet labeled “The Football Era” traveling from Tokyo to Los Angeles Saturday was Swift herself.

Whether or not the suspiciously named jet was indeed Swift, her Super Bowl attendance has now been confirmed.

Super Bowl Feb 10

Private plane labeled ‘The Football Era' lands at LAX, online sleuths say. But is it really Taylor Swift?

Taylor Swift Feb 10

People are getting emotional over Super Bowl ad inspired by Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance

As for where she will sit?

It’s possible that Swift would be in a suite, as she has typically sat in when watching her boyfriend play tight end for the Chiefs.

However, Kelce family matriarch Donna Kelce has said that she may end up sitting with fans in Las Vegas due to the steep price of a suite at the Super Bowl.

“You can understand that the boxes in Vegas are multi-million dollars, so I have a feeling I’m not in a box,” Donna shared on Today Feb. 7. “I have a feeling I am in the stands. As far as I know, I’m in the stands with everybody else because it is a pricey Super Bowl.”

Wherever Swift sits, it will sure to draw added attention to the Super Bowl, which is already one of if not the biggest media night of the year.

Swift’s attendance at Chiefs games throughout the NFL season has received some criticism from longtime NFL fans, but many others say her presence has been a huge benefit.

Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce has caused many more female viewers than in the past, which is a change he welcomes.

“It’s been a very interesting, very fun year having the two of them dating, the attention that’s been focused on the Chiefs,” Hunt said back in January. “Our female audience has grown leaps and bounds.”

It’s no surprise that many Swifties are tuning in to NFL games, specifically the Chiefs’ games, to see if they can get a glimpse of Swift and her tight end beau. The Grammy winner has attended more than 10 Chiefs games this season.

On Feb. 9, Cetaphil, a skin care brand, released its latest ad, which shows a father unsuccessfully attempting to bond with his daughter as he watches football. The daughter appears to ignore her dad and heads to her room to put on some face cream. She then hears the sports announcer saying, “Well, folks, there she is,” seemingly referring to the pop star appearing on the screen.

As the girl heads downstairs to see the game, her dad turns up the volume and the announcer says, “The most famous fan of the game.” At no time does the ad specifically mention Swift or Kelce.

The spot continues by showing the father gifting his daughter a No. 13 red jersey, which happens to be Swift’s favorite number and Chiefs colors, and him putting cream on his face.

The two then start watching a football game together, wearing red jerseys and with wrists filled with friendship bracelets — another accessory made popular by Swifties during her “Eras Tour” and how Swift and Kelce first connected when he tried to give her his number on a bracelet.

“This season, dads and daughters found a new way to connect,” the commercial concludes, before noting that the people in the ad are a real father and daughter from New York.

In an additional message posted on their YouTube page, the company added: “Dads and daughters everywhere have gotten closer because of a certain globe-trotting eras singer screaming from the football sidelines, and we’re here for it. So this season, we’re inviting dads and daughters to get closer to each other’s worlds — daughters sharing their love for skincare and dads sharing their love for the game.”

It concludes with, “Get your #GameTimeGlow on together.”

People in the comments section applauded the brand for its message and ad.

One person wrote: “Bravo to their media team! Thank you for highlighting the few that saw this as an opportunity to connect and make it positive! Love the nod to routine skincare as well!!!!! Don’t forget your SPF.”

“Crying at a Cetaphil commercial at 10am on a friday,” added a second commenter, with another user writing, “Good job media team.”

The Eras Tour X profile retweeted the commercial, writing, “New Super Bowl commercial surrounding the Taylor Swift effect!”

X user Amir Zonozi tweeted, “Not a big fan of brands hijacking sports moments without official partnerships but Cetaphil understood the assignment with this one.”

Another X user quoted the commercial’s message, adding in part, “I keep watching it and I sob every time. Cetaphil really said ‘haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate but we saw the importance of this.'”

An additional post on X read, “Me: that’s weird, why is Cetaphil trending right now? Also me, texting everyone ‘have you seen the Cetaphil SuperBowl commercial?!’ So. Well. Done.”

The Super Bowl takes place Sunday, Feb. 11, with many people wondering whether Swift will make the game after her concert in Tokyo on Feb. 10. 

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from Today:

• King Charles shares first public comments since announcement of his cancer diagnosis
• Taylor Swift nearly falls off stage prop during ‘Eras Tour’ show: ‘My life flashed before my eyes’
• New ‘Golden Bachelorette’ spinoff will air this fall, ABC confirms

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Fans are following the pop star’s journey from Tokyo to the United States after Swift performed four Eras Tour shows over the past four nights.

Swift’s private jet left Haneda Airport Saturday night and is scheduled to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport Saturday evening, according to Flight Radar.

In a playful turn of events, the jet’s info listed includes the name “The Football Era,” giving Swifties the positive acknowledgment that the four-time Album of the Year winner will be attending the Big Game.

Taylor Swift Feb 8

Forget Taylor Swift's politics – these are the real Super Bowl political influencers

Taylor Swift Feb 7

Travis Kelce addresses Taylor Swift engagement speculation ahead of 2024 Super Bowl

How long is the flight from Tokyo to Las Vegas?

The flight time is approximately 12 hours.

Even though Swift performed in Tokyo the night before Super Bowl LVIII, the time difference is helping the star arrive in Las Vegas on time. Tokyo is 17 hours ahead of Las Vegas.

According to our math, if Swift got off the stage at 10 p.m. local time on Saturday (5 a.m. PT) she would have plenty of time to make it to the Big Game.

When is Taylor Swift’s next show?

Swift has a quick turnaround after Super Bowl LVIII.

On Feb. 16, Swift starts the Australian swing of her Eras Tour and is scheduled to be there for 10 days. After that, she is set to perform in Singapore until March 9.

Swift begins her European swing in May.

A man accused of stalking Taylor Swift after being spotted multiple times outside the singer’s Manhattan townhouse was found unfit to stand trial and will be committed to state custody for psychiatric treatment, attorneys said Friday.

David Crowe, 33, was arrested three times late last month in front of the pop star’s home in Manhattan’s exclusive Tribeca neighborhood. The Seattle resident faced charges of stalking, harassment and contempt.

Prosecutors have said Crowe violated a protective order issued Jan. 24 mandating he stay away from Swift and her home on the same day it was issued.

Crowe was found unfit to stand trial after a psychiatric exam, and the case was dismissed. He will be committed to the custody of the Office of Mental Health to receive treatment, according to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“We are pleased that all parties now agree to the obvious truth that Mr. Crowe is too ill to proceed, and that he requires treatment, not jail,” Katherine LeGeros Bajuk of New York County Defender Services said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to ensuring Mr. Crowe is provided with the psychiatric treatment and supportive social services he needs to achieve a successful and stable re-entry into society.”

Crowe had been spotted near the singer’s home about 30 times since Nov. 25, according to court documents.

Swift’s Manhattan townhouse has been the scene of several break-ins when Swift wasn’t there, including by some who were identified as stalkers.

A representative for the singer did not return an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.