In what was likely the most highly anticipated podcast episode of 2025, Taylor Swift went on Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights to announce her 12th studio album. By Thursday afternoon, the episode had about 11.9 million views, and by Friday morning it racked up nearly 15 million.
Swift and Travis Kelce, who have been a couple since 2023, have openly supported each other’s careers—the 14-time Grammy winning artist showed up at many Chiefs games during the 2024–25 season, while Kelce even joined Swift on stage at one of her Eras tour stops in England. So in some ways, this crossover seemed inevitable.
Swift mainly stuck to music during her appearance on the podcast, which the Kelce brothers have hosted since 2022.
Swift’s episode lasted about one hour and 45 minutes and included an announcement of her new album, called The Life of a Showgirl, which will be released on Oct. 3. The conversation also touched on her recent acquisition of the master recordings for her first six albums.
Live viewership on YouTube for the episode topped at around 1.3 million Wednesday night, but the episode ended abruptly, which the show’s Instagram account attributed to a glitch. The remaining 18 minutes were first uploaded to the podcast’s audio editions on Spotify and Apple before the full video was put on YouTube.
Swift and Kelce discussed their two-year relationship, her 21 month-long Eras tour, and the hobbies she’s taken up since ending the tour, including baking sourdough bread and sewing.
The singer poked fun at herself for some misconceptions she had about football before dating Kelce. On their first date, she asked the Chiefs tight end what it was like facing Jason, a retired offensive lineman, on the field in Super Bowl LVII when the Chiefs defeated the Eagles. Kelce had to explain that he and his brother both play on offense and were never on the field at the same time.
“I didn’t know what a first down was, I didn’t know what the chains were, I didn’t know what a tight end was,” Swift said.
She later became obsessed with the game and grew to love it.
“I became a person running through my house yelling, ‘We drafted Xavier Worthy!’” Swift says. Worthy was the Chiefs 2024 first-round pick out of Texas as a wide receiver. Swift noted how Worthy notched the record in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Draft combine at 4.21 seconds—she told Kelce the Chiefs drafted Worthy before he could learn it from anyone in the organization.
Toward the end of the podcast, she was asked by Jason what her “Welcome to the NFL” moment was. Swift said it was at the end of the 2023 AFC Championship game in Baltimore when she walked onto the field for the first time after the Chiefs beat the Ravens to go to the Super Bowl.
“I’ve never seen this much media in my life,” Swift said. “And I’ve seen a lot of media.”
Swift’s appearance on New Heights comes roughly a year after the Kelce brothers sold it to Amazon in a three-year deal worth $100 million.
