Break the internet, drop a long-awaited album cover, and send fans swooning after declaring your love on a podcast? It's all in a day's work for Taylor Swift.
Taylor made her New Heights debut on Wednesday with a massive 1.3m viewers tuning into the live stream on YouTube, causing it to crash, and the episode now having 9.2m views and counting.
As well as spilling details about her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, Taylor dropped details about her new album, The Life Of A Showgirl, and while we wait for Swifties to pick out the inevitable Easter Eggs, here are just a few of the main takeaways from the podcast...
The 'insane' question Taylor asked Travis on their first date
After joking she owed New Heights a lot, including the fact that the show got her a boyfriend, Taylor jumped into chatting about her and Travis' first date.
She recalled how she: 'Legitimately asked [Travis] what it was like when the Chiefs played the Eagles in the Super Bowl and he looked across the field... and saw his brother standing five feet in front of him.'
Sounds normal enough, right? Well, not if you're an American football fan as although Travis' brother and pod co-host played for the Eagles, their positions meant they weren't on the field at the same time.
Taylor continued to reveal Travis' sweet reaction and told how he didn't laugh at her mistake, saying: 'I now know what an insane question that was but he just looked at me and was like “actually I’m on the offence and my brother’s on the offence and I’m only on the field with the defence".'
Travis then jumped in to reassure Taylor and say, 'that’s how you played it on the playground growing up,' so she shouldn't feel bad. 'I am forever grateful for you diving into the football world,' he added.
Now, Taylor knows her stuff, joking that if she was given 16 months (queue Swifties working out what that number means in Swift maths) she'd be able to be an anylist.
'I became obsessed with it, I became a person who was running through the halls of my house screaming "we drafted Xavier Worthy" and my friends were like “who body snatched you?”'
Taylor and Travis' love story is what she's always dreamed of
The story of how Travis made Taylor a friendship bracelet with his number on to shoot his shot has been well known for a while now but isn’t it sweet to hear the tale of how they met from Taylor herself?
Although Taylor never received said bracelet, she admitted Travis’ chase of her was ‘such a wild, romantic gesture, to just be like, "I wanna date you!"'
She went on to compare Travis to a John Hughes movie character, joking he was outside her window with a boombox shouting: 'I wanna date you! Do you wanna go on a date with me? I made you a friendship bracelet. Do you wanna date me?'
Taylor added: 'I was like, if this guy isn't crazy — which is a big if — this is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.' Queue swoons from Swifties.
Elsewhere during the chat, Taylor joked that she has lots to thank for the New Heights podcast for as it ‘helped her get a boyfriend’ because Travis used it ‘as his own personal dating app.'
They're clearly smitten with each other
Surely there can be no more doubters about their relationship after listening to them gush over one another on the New Heights podcast.
The couple was very tactile during the recording, often holding hands and reaching for one another, with Travis even declaring himself the 'luckiest man in the world.'
How Taylor found out about her masters
In one of the more emotional podcast moments, Taylor recalled the moment she found out she had regained control of her masters.
Taylor was at home with Travis when the call came, with her saying: 'He was playing video games, and he put his headset down. I was like "I got my music back!" And I was heaving crying. This changed my life.'
What versions of Taylor's records fans should now listen to
Obviously, fans are delighted that Taylor has her masters now but when she regained them, it did raise the question of which version of her music we should be listening to.
On New Heights, Taylor cleared this up and said she doesn't mind whether fans keep with her Taylor's Version rerecords or go back to the originals.
'It's whatever you guys want. I love both of them. I would not have put out the rerecords if I didn’t think they held up or were better. I think a lot of the vocals I did on the rerecords are better than the originals,' Taylor said earning and 'oooh' from Travis.
She added: 'But if you’ve found a nostalgia in the originals and that was what you were listening to when you were 12 years old bopping around your bedroom, go crazy. We got ‘em all.'
Tay's sense of humour is still on point
Swifties have always known that, as well as being a mastermind, Taylor is very funny and she proved this time and time again in the podcast.
One of the first teaser clips set the tone with Taylor poking fun at the furore, predominantly from male sports fans, that there had been when she started attending football games.
'As we all know, you guys have a lot of male sports fans that listen to your podcast,' Taylor said. 'I think we all know that if there’s one thing that male sports fans want to see in their spaces and on their screens… it’s more of me.'
The release date and cover art for TS12
In music to Swifties' ears, The Life Of A Showgirl will be released on October 3 and feature 12 songs... including a collab with Sabrina Carpenter.
Taylor said: 'This album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant.
'It just comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life and so that effervescence has come through on this record.. as you said, bangers.
'There are no other songs coming. With TPD I was like “here’s a data dump of everything I’ve thought, felt and experienced in two or three years, here’s 31 songs” this is 12 there’s not a 13th… there’s not other ones coming. This is the record I’ve been waiting to make for a very long time.'
See more photos below:
