9 biggest takeaways from Taylor Swift appearing on Travis and Jason Kelce's New Heights podcast

Taylor Swift was finally a guest on the New Heights podcast, the show co-hosted by her boyfriend and Travis Kelce and his brother, Jason Kelce.

You could say it was a full-circle moment for the high-profile couple, who have been dating for almost two years. After all, it was on this very podcast when Travis famously shared how he tried and failed to give Swift his phone number when she performed her Eras Tour at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium in July 2023.

"This podcast has done a lot for me. I owe a lot to this podcast. This podcast got me a boyfriend. Ever since Travis decided to use it as his personal dating app about two years ago," Swift joked.

Two years on, fans got to see the loved-up couple on their screens for the two-hour-long episode, as they opened up about how they cope with the public attention of their relationship, and the similarities between their respective careers.

But Swift also had a big announcement, using her guest appearance to share details about her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, the cover art, track list, collaborators, release date, and inspiration behind her latest project.

Swifties were well and truly tuned in when the episode aired last night, and the sheer number of them caused a glitch.

"Shoutout all the 92%ers and Swifties for actually helping us break the internet," the official New Heights account said.

The episode has over 9.4 million views since it dropped 15 hours ago.

You can watch it in full here:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

From getting her masters back, her relationship, the Eras Tour, and Easter eggs, here is a breakdown of the key highlights from Swift's podcasting debut:

The announcement of new album 'The Life of a Showgirl'

New Heights

The headline news from the podcast episode is, of course, Swift announcing her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

All the juicy details were revealed near the end of the episode, but it was well worth the wait!

Like in the preview clip, Swift can be seen with a mint green briefcase featuring her initials, "T.S.," in orange on the front. She then opens it to reveal her new album, the cover art and the track list.

"This is my brand-new album, The Life of a Showgirl," Swift said, to which Jason screamed in excitement.

"TS 12!" Travis exclaimed.

After revealing the cover art and album title, the pop star went into more detail about the album concept.

"I would say it’s everything that was going on behind the curtain," Swift explained on the theme of the album.

With the success of the Eras Tour, and reaching new heights (pardon the pun) in her career, the singer reflected on how this new sound "just comes from like the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life. And so that effervescence has come through on this record.”

Swift would fly to Sweden to work on the album during her days off on the Eras Tour, “I would do like three shows in a row. I’d have three days off. I’d fly to Sweden, go back to the tour, and was actually working on this. I was physically exhausted at this point in the tour, but I was so mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating.”

She described how she wanted "melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it. And lyrics that are just as vivid, but crisp and focused and completely intentional.”

Swift tearfully recalls sending her family to buy back her masters

During the episode, Swift explained how she was able to buy back the master recordings of her first six albums, with a little help from her loved ones.

When recalling the story, the singer appeared emotional and shared that she had "intrusive thoughts" every single day about not owning her music outright.

"Rather than send lawyers or management, like, in a big crew, I sent my mom and brother, who I work with, to LA," she explained, who met with Shamrock Capital.

"They told them what this meant for me ... they told them the whole story of all the times we've tried to buy it, all the time it's fallen through, all the times we had gotten plans together and figured out something we thought was going to work and it didn't at the last minute," Swift recalled.

Fast forward, and Swift was in Kansas City with Travis when her mum rang to inform her, "You got your music."

Understandably, Swift couldn't hold it together when she went to tell Kelce, who was playing video games, and despite her attempt at being calm, she was in tears as she fell into his arms.

"This changed my life," Swift said about this milestone. "I can't believe it still."

The art of the hidden Easter egg, from the mastermind herself

If there is one thing Swift knows how to do (aside from making hit music), it is how to create and plant hidden Easter eggs in her work that her fans go crazy for.

"I'm never going to plant an Easter egg that ties back to my personal life. It's always going to be towards music," she stated.

Out of all the Easter eggs she's planted, Swift shared that her favourite one was her 2022 commencement speech at New York University, where she received an honorary degree.

"When the 'Midnights' album came out, after that, the fans were like, 'the whole speech was an Easter egg.'" she said. "And that, for me, that's really fun because they find it fun."

An Easter egg was hidden in the final show of her Eras Tour - did you spot it?

It was the descending orange door Swift walked through at the end of her Eras Tour as the final song Karma played.

“I would leave the stage every night going down the elevator, lift. That’s how every single ‘Eras’ show ended — except for the last one, where I exited through a door, an orange door, to be specific. And that actually was an Easter egg.

She added, "Basically the reason why I chose to exit that way is because I kind of wanted to give a little subliminal hint to the fans that I may be leaving the ‘Era Tour’ era, but I was also entering a new era.”

Swift gives family health update

At one point, Swift gave a health update for both of her parents, Scott and Andrea Swift, as she joked how it's been a "summer of my parental upgrades" with both undergoing surgery.

“He’s [Scott] doing good. So he is doing incredibly well. My dad had an interesting summer. He actually had a quintuple bypass surgery,” she said. “That’s a really intense surgery. Yeah, so it all happened really quick.”

In typical dad fashion, she noted how he told his family not to worry about him.

“He said something about, like, when a cat is injured, it curls up around a tree and heals itself. I was like, ‘Dad, cats don’t have quintuple bypasses,’” she said.

“It was very parent-child reversal in a lot of ways, like my brother and my mom and I were each taking shifts in the ICU and staying with him 24/7,” she added.

Meanwhile, her mum is "doing great" too and has a "new knee."

“This was just like the summer of my parental upgrades, like, which is upgrading the parents, making sure that they live to be at least 186 years old,” Swift quipped. “Because they are two of my best friends, and I just adore them, and it was actually one of the most special things that’s ever happened to me, like spending all that time with them this summer and getting to, like you have those long talks that you don’t have when it’s like a small, concentrated period of time.”

Travis is grateful and full of praise for Eras Tour

Taylor Swift performs onstage during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at Johan Cruijff Arena on July 04, 2024 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

The podcast was sprinkled with moments of Travis complimenting Swift, and shared just how appreciative he was of the Eras Tour, which helped the two meet.

"If I would have never gone to that show and been mesmerized and just been captivated, and then left with such a desire to want to meet you, I would have never went on here and told everyone how butthurt I was," he said, in a callback to his podcast andecote on not meeting Swift backstage at the show he attended.

It was after seeing Swift perform that Travis says he was "engulfed in the curiosity of who you were."

"You didn't even know what the word engulfed meant before you meant Taylor," Jason quipped.

"I had never experienced (someone) so mesmerising on stage and then so real and so beautiful in person," Travis said.

To which a bashful Swift said, "Hey," and placed her elbow on the shoulder of her beau.

"Should I leave?" a speechless Jason asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Swift said.

"I don't know where to go from here," Jason Kelce responded.

How the couple respond to rumours and criticism

Travis Kelce #87 of the Kansas City Chiefs (L) celebrates with Taylor Swift after defeating the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game at M&T Bank Stadium on January 28, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland.Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

Given how high-profile their relationship is, Swift and Travis shared how they respond to all the noise about them.

"We don't," she simply stated. "Anything you feed your brain, it will internalize. Anything you feed the internet, it will kill. I've been in the music industry for 20 years. It's pretty hard to hurt my feelings at this point."

"Something can be about me, my name can be in the actual headline, and it can still be none of my business."

In regard to social media, Swift says she can "mediate a really healthy relationship with not seeing a whole lot."

"I do detach from the internet in a huge way."

Swift admits she didn't know a lot about football before dating Travis

Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes look on during the first half of the game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on October 22, 2023 in Kansas City, Missouri. Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images

She's a big football fan now, but Swift confessed she didn't know much about football and recalled asking Travis on their first date what it was like to line up against his older brother, Jason, at Super Bowl LVII.

The brothers were offensive players, as she noted, "I now know what an insane question that was."

"I thought everyone was on the field at the same time," she admitted.

"I thought it was Jared Goff is here and Josh Allen is here. And they blow a whistle and they go at each other. And it's like, 'Who's going to win?!'"

Though there was no judgment from Kelce, and now she's a self-proclaimed football fan.

"I fell in love with it," she said. "I became obsessed with it."

She praised Kelce for not judging her ... saying it was one of the things that first made her like him.

In fact, she was the one to tell Travis that the Chiefs had drafted Xavier Worthy in April last year..

Plus, she knows what coverages are now.

"I'm not ready to be an analyst right now," Swift said. "But give me 16 months."

How Travis Kelce's Eras Tour performance happened

We all remember the iconic moment when Travis joined the Eras Tour stage with Swift in Wembley, where he made an appearance in part of her routine for her song I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.

The idea first started out as a "bit," according to Swift.

"It was a 'wouldn't it be funny if' kind of thing," she explained. "But when we were talking about it, I saw that little twinkle in [his] eye.'"

However, Travis had differing feelings about making the cameo: "I was serious in a terrifying fashion."

Her current obsession is making sourdough bread

Now that the Eras tour is over, Swift revealed she's swapped performing "Vigilante S***" for "granny s***" hobbies.

"I'd say all my hobbies could be categorized as hobbies you could have had in the 1700s," she joked. "I like to sew—I specialize in children's purses and baby blankets. I love to paint. I love to cook."

She also admitted that she has a "different baking obsession every six months," her current fixation being sourdough bread being the which has "taken up my life."

"I'm always baking bread and texting my friends like, 'Can I send you some bread?,'" the singer said. "I'm on sourdough blogs. There's a whole community of us, and I didn't know it."

“There’s one I've been workshopping for the girls [Jason's four daughters] because they love everything rainbow: Funfetti sourdough," she revealed. "Because they love sprinkles. We put sprinkles in everything when we hang out."

Elsewhere, Taylor Swift announces new album - everything we know so far, and All the times Taylor Swift hinted 'The Life of a Showgirl' was coming.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.