Entertainment
9 things Taylor Swift revealed about “The Life of a Showgirl” on “New Heights” podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce
Taylor Swift gave fans a lot to look forward to after she appeared on “New Heights,” the podcast hosted by her boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs star, Travis Kelce, and his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles star Jason Kelce, Wednesday night.
Swift used the podcast episode to announce her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” which she was working on during the European leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour in 2024.
“This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time,” Swift said.
Here are more details Swift shared about the upcoming album:
“The Life of a Showgirl” release date
The album will be released on Friday, Oct. 3. Fans of Swift know the dates she chooses to announce and release music almost always have meaning and often have a 13, her lucky number, somewhere.
“Never not annoying,” she said about herself on the podcast. “Always going to try to force a 13 into the situation and this one was right there.”
Swift, Max Martin and Shellback produced the album
Swift made “The Life of a Showgirl” with Max Martin and Shellback, producers she has worked with in the past but never for the entirety of an album.
“The three of us have made some of my favorite songs that I’ve ever done before,” Swift said. Those songs include “22,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Blank Space,” “Style,” “Shake It Off,” “…Ready For It?” and “Delicate.”
The three hadn’t produced music together in seven or eight years, but returning to work with them “felt like catching lightning in a bottle,” Swift said.
“By the time we came back together, I feel like we had so much more dexterity to what we do,” she said. “This was the time where it felt like all three of us in the room were carrying the same weight as creators and it was really special.”
Martin and Shellback have also worked with pop artists like Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, P!nk and more.
“The best ideas we’ve ever had”
Swift said she approached Martin, who she described as her mentor, about doing an album at her Eras Tour show in Stockholm in May 2024.
“I essentially said to him, ‘I want to be as proud of an album as I am of the Eras Tour and for the same reasons,’ and he was like, ‘Do you understand what kind of pressure that is?'” Swift said.
But Swift is confident in the outcome.
“We knew that we had to bring the best ideas we’ve ever had, and I also know the pressure I’m putting on this record by saying that, but I don’t care because I love it that much, and I’m so proud of it, and it 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,” she said.
“The Life of a Showgirl” theme
Swift described the theme of “The Life of a Showgirl” as “everything that was going on behind the curtain” during the Eras Tour.
Asked by Jason Kelce why she chose orange for the color scheme of the album, Swift said, “I’ve just always liked it, Jason.”
“It feels like kind of energetically how my life has felt, and 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,” she said.
There are 12 songs on the album
Swift shared the titles of the 12 tracks on the album: “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Elizabeth Taylor,” “Opalite,” “Father Figure,” “Eldest Daughter,” “Ruin The Friendship,” “Actually Romantic,” “Wi$h Li$t,” “Wood,” “Cancelled!,” “Honey” and “The Life of a Showgirl (Feat. Sabrina Carpenter).”
The pop star added that there are no additional songs, a departure from past albums. Her most recent release, “The Tortured Poets Department,” had 31 songs.
“Every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons. … It’s just right,” she said. “That focus and that kind of discipline with creating an album and keeping the bar really high is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time.
“I tend to love to write lots and lots of music, so it’s a temptation to release lots of music. I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality and on the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle.”
Melodies and lyrics were key goals
Swift opened up about the primary objectives she had making “The Life of a Showgirl.”
“My main goals were 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,” she said
Martin had made a point to tell Swift he didn’t want her to leave behind the type of writing and storytelling she did on “folklore” (released in July 2020) even if the sound of this album was different. Swift said she replied, “I couldn’t if I tried.”
“So it was really amazing that we were able to, without doing too much overthinking, we were able to get in there and it was just ideas flying and all of these ideas were like, we’ve been waiting years to come back together and make this project.”
The album art
The cover of “The Life of a Showgirl” is a layered picture of Swift submerged in water.
“This represents the end of my night,” she explained. “When I’m on tour, I have the same day every single day … and my day ends with me in a bathtub.”
Swift wanted the cover to show something offstage to represent the theme of the album.
“This album isn’t really about what happened to me on stage, it’s about what I was going through offstage,” she said. “It’s the life beyond the show.”
The images were captured by photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, who Swift previously worked with for the album art for her sixth studio album, “reputation,” released in 2017.
“I loved what they did with those photos, so I called them up for this one, and I’m so happy with the way that the photos came out for this one,” she said.
The album was recorded in Sweden during the Eras Tour
Swift traveled to Sweden on her off days while touring Europe during the Eras Tour to work on the album.
“I would be playing shows, I’d do like three shows in a row. I’d have like three days off, I’d fly to Sweden,” she said. “I was physically exhausted at this point in the tour but I was so mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating.”
“This album is going to make you dance”
Some additional details about “The Life of a Showgirl” came from Travis Kelce, who revealed he has heard the whole album.
“I know they’re all 12 bangers,” he said. “It’s a lot more upbeat, and it’s a lot more like fun pop like excitement. … I think it’s a complete 180 from a lot of the songs on ‘Tortured Poets’ for sure.”
Swift confirmed that was a good way to describe the album, adding, “Life is more upbeat.”
Travis later told Jason, “you are going to move.”
“This album is going to make you dance,” he said.
Maria O’Brien, the actress and long-serving acting coach best known for her 15-year tenure on Days of Our Lives and appearances in films including Protocol and Smile, has died at the age of 75.
She passed away on 24th February, though the cause of death was not revealed.
Born on 14th August 1950 in Los Angeles, O’Brien came from genuine Hollywood royalty.
Her father, Edmond O’Brien, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 1954’s The Barefoot Contessa, while her mother, Olga San Juan, was a musical comedy star who appeared in a string of films including Are You with It? and One Touch of Venus.
Maria followed them into the industry, landing her first onscreen credit in 1963 on the TV series Sam Benedict.
Over a career spanning six decades, she built up an impressive body of work across both film and television.
Her screen credits included The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Table for Five, and the 1984 Goldie Hawn comedy Protocol, and she made guest appearances on some of the most popular series of the 1980s and 90s, among them Magnum P.I., Murder She Wrote, L.A. Law, Matlock, CHiPs, and The Love Boat.
Along the way she shared scenes with Angela Lansbury, Lily Tomlin, Tom Selleck, Melanie Griffith, and Goldie Hawn.
She also won a Drama-Logue award in 1990 for her performance in Jean Genet’s The Maids at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
In the late 1990s, O’Brien moved into coaching, joining the daytime dramas Sunset Beach and Passions before taking up her long-running position as acting coach on Days of Our Lives, a role she held until her retirement in 2022.
Away from the screen, she was a passionate advocate for Alzheimer’s research.
Her father had been among the first celebrities to be publicly diagnosed with the disease, and in 1983 O’Brien testified before Congress about its devastating impact.
Her advocacy played a meaningful role in securing government funding for research into the condition.
She is survived by her three children, Thomas, Danica, and Sean Anderson, and her sister Bridget O’Brien Adelman.
Zara Larsson has gone viral after leaving a cheeky comment on a fan’s TikTok video, and the internet has had a lot to say about it.
The 28-year-old Swedish singer was tagged in a post by TikTok user @lattegirl, who shared footage of herself at one of Larsson’s recent concerts watching the singer perform Midnight Sun.
The text on the video read: “i didn’t know i was pregnant here but at least my baby got to hear midnight sun before I aborted it.”
Larsson spotted the tag and jumped straight into the comments with a response that was equal parts cheeky and deadpan: “I killed the performance and then you killed it after the performance purrrrrr.”
She then reposted the video to her own TikTok account, which sent the exchange into overdrive online.
Screenshots of her comment spread rapidly across platforms, igniting debate about celebrity responsibility, edgy humour, and where the line sits when it comes to joking about this topic.
On Reddit, fans of the singer were largely amused.
“She’s so funny for that idc,” wrote one user. Another added, “This makes me love her more,” while a third offered some context for newer followers: “Zara has always been like this looool can the new fans catch up on her lore.”
Larsson has not elaborated on the exchange or addressed the wider reaction beyond her initial comment and repost.
Keke Palmer and Demi Lovato have opened up about their experiences dating significantly older men as teenagers, with both reflecting on how those relationships look very different through adult eyes.
The candid conversation took place on the 3rd March episode of Palmer’s Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast, where the two former child stars bonded over shared experiences growing up in the spotlight.
It was Palmer, 32, who kicked things off with a question that stopped the conversation in its tracks. “I’m fifteen, why was my boyfriend 20?” she said, before Lovato, 33, quietly added: “Why was my boyfriend 30?”
The admission visibly struck Palmer.
“Girl, damn,” she said. “I’m not smiling at that but that is real. We were trying to find outlets, though, and just a way to process this.”
She went on to describe the unsettling realisation that comes with getting older and understanding what was actually happening at the time.
“The moment when you realise and you get [to] the age of a lot of people that were around you and doing stuff,” she said, “it’s almost a mental break that can happen because you realise, ‘You were taking advantage. Oh, I was being exploited.'”
Both women spoke about how their early careers created a warped sense of maturity that made those relationships feel normal at the time.
“That was very difficult for me because at 15 I’m thinking like, ‘My boyfriend’s older because I’m doing an older job. And I’m doing a bunch of things and this is the way that it is,'” Palmer explained.
“And it seemed normal in my mind.” Lovato agreed, noting that it felt especially justified if you were considered “an older soul” or told you were “mature for your age.”
That phrase, “mature for your age”, became a thread running through the conversation.
Palmer praised fellow former child star Hilary Duff for addressing the same experience in her 2025 song Mature, saying, “Yeah, because it’s like ‘oh s–t, we all had the same damn life.’ You know what I mean, where people kept telling us ‘You’re so mature for your age.'”
Lovato pointed Palmer towards her own 2022 song 29, which grapples with the same territory.
“I also wrote a song about that,” she said.
“It’s called 29 and when you listen to it I think you’ll be able to relate to it.”
Lovato has not publicly named who the song is about, though she dated actor Wilmer Valderrama for six years before their split in 2016. Valderrama is now 46.
Palmer has previously spoken about an “inappropriate” relationship with an older man during her time starring on True Jackson, VP. She shares son Leo, three, with ex Darius Jackson. Lovato married Jordan “Jutes” Lutes in May.
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