Taylor Swift visited her Late Night pal Seth Meyers for a Wednesday night takeover, serving as the show’s only guest.
Not counting Meyer’s signature “Closer Look” segment, the entire episode was a “Tay/kover” as it was dubbed by the show. But even “A Closer Look” threw in some friendship bracelet and Life of a Showgirl song name jokes while speaking about the current government shutdown.
Swift seemed right at home with Meyers despite the fact it’s been five years since she’d last been on the show. Meyers cheekily noted that it seemed like Swift has done about 15 years worth of work during those five years.
“It’s absolutely been my favorite one,” Swift said about Life of a Showgirl rollout, calling it the “most joyful” of her career. Swift said she’s been tuning into what fans are posting on TikTok. She also said for the first time her entire family – her mom, her dad and her brother – are all on the press tour with her. Swift also gave a peak behind the curtain of the making of the music video for her single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” which featured several dancers from her Eras tour.
The singer also spoke about her new favorite hobby: baking bread. Meyers proudly showed off his own Swift-baked loaf, the packaging littered with puns inspired by her lyrics. In what seemed to be a cheeky wink at some of the online discourse around her music, Swift said her puns won’t “be appreciated until after it’s time.” The Grammy winner’s bread got a hefty chunk of screen team with Meyers showing a clip from her recently released theatre event of the moment it was decided her bread could be in “The Fate of Ophelia” music video.
On Wednesday morning, with over a full day of tracking left, Swift officially took the record for biggest opening week so far for a record in the streaming era, according to Billboard with data sourced from Luminate. She’s sold a reported 3.2 million copies with 300,000 streaming units, taking her to a record-breaking 3.5 million combined. Adele’s 25 currently holds the record for most individual sales with 3.3 million units (not including streaming).
Of course, Swift’s recent engagement to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was a hot topic, offering a look at what seems to be their playful relationship with one another with Swift lightheartedly poking fun at her now fiancé. In a clip released before the Wednesday night show, Swift recounted Kelce’s run in with his “favorite director” Greta Gerwig, where he mistook Hugh Grant’s wife for the Barbie director.
Swift’s 12th album, produced and written by the singer herself along with hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback, was thought to be a return to some of her most standard pop albums, like 1989, but it instead managed to be the love child of Evermore and Midnights. The album sold 2.7 million copies on release day (Oct. 3), making that day alone her largest week ever, according to Luminate via Billboard.
In addition to the album, Swift released a cinematic companion over the weekend, which included a chance to see the music video for the album’s lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” before its online release Sunday. Swift directed the video, which was filmed by frequent collaborator and Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, and features choreography from famed choreographer Mandy Moore, who worked on the singer’s Eras tour.
The Grammy Award-winner’s release event — not fully classified as a film or a documentary — earned an estimated $33 million at the domestic box office and an additional $13 million worldwide, bringing its grand total of $46 million globally.