Taylor Swift returned to the late-night circuit on Monday for the first time since “Midnights,” appearing on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to discuss her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” The record, her twelfth studio release and a collaboration with “Red,” “1989” and “Reputation” producers Max Martin and Shellback,” has received . . . mixed reviews.
“The spice level on this album is high,” Swift said, as Fallon confirmed, “It’s the spiciest yet.”
Swift described “The Life of a Showgirl” as a record about show business and living a public life. The title track, featuring Sabrina Carpenter, explores what she called “the playful, humorous side of show business.” “As entertainers, one of our main jobs is to be a mirror for people,” she told Fallon. “The way you feel about our art has a lot to do with the life experience you’re having at this point in time.” That, she explained, is why she’s glad to have such a deep catalog — if one album doesn’t resonate now, it might later, when you’re living through something else. Maybe so!
Swift also offered context for select tracks. “Opalite,” a reflection on self-determination, captures “exactly how I feel right now,” she said. “Life isn’t always going to give you what you want. You have to pick your own happiness. You have to choose it.” “Father Figure” was inspired by a scene from “Succession,” while “Wood” — a track about her fiancé, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s uh, “magic wand” — started out in a “very innocent place.” She joked, “I don’t know what happened, man.”
Later, Swift addressed a rumor about turning down the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show over a dispute over the footage ownership. “No,” she told Fallon when he asked her about it, adding that Jay-Z and his team have always been “good to her.”
“I’m in love with a guy who plays that sport on that field,” Swift said. “This has nothing to do with Travis — he’d love for me to do it.” But football is “violent chess. That is gladiators without swords. That is dangerous. The whole season, I am locked in on what that man is doing on the field.” (Halftime acts are announced early in the season, so this doesn’t necessarily mean Kelce or the Chiefs will be playing in the game.)
“I’m just vibing,” she added. “I’m just riding this wave.”
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