The biggest moment from Taylor Swift’s first run at Wembley on The Eras Tour happened on the last night, of course, when Travis Kelce joined her on stage at the start of “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”. Now, on the season two finale of the New Heights podcast, he’s answering the question of whose idea it was for his cameo.
First of all, from the pod perspective, excellent editorial and business decision to save this piece of information for the final episode of the season, go out with a bang and pump up those numbers so as to finish off on a high – and take those stats and turn them into a big sale? It was reported a couple of months ago that New Heights was being shopped around for a new deal in the hundreds of millions. Considering that the show is regularly at the top of the podcast charts and that, for example, SiriusXM signed Smartless to a $100 million deal, there is massive potential for Jason and Travis Kelce to market themselves in the same range. Which means those listens and shares and facts and figures are important. So to go back to Travis talking about his appearance on Taylor’s stage, and how much attention his talking about it is getting, this has to be strategic. This is not just about feeding fan service and getting everyone jacked up on TNT. Well, it is about getting everyone jacked up on TNT, but not just for gossip purposes. Your excitement about TNT will get them PAID. Keep any eye out in the coming weeks for a possible announcement about an acquisition.
Now to what Travis said about that moment:
@newheightshow Travis had one rule for his debut on stage: Do NOT Drop Taylor NEW HEIGHTS SEASON 2 FINALE PREMIERES NOW!! Link in bio
♬ original sound - New Heights
So it was his idea, and to use a sports analogy – Travis wanted the ball, he went to Coach Taylor (hahahah! IYKYK) and presented her with the play: rolling out on one of the bikes in the 1989 era. At which point I imagine her patting him on the head, “I’ll think about it, sweetie”, and then came up with a better option for her very good boy.
The option was to put him in a tuxedo instead of on a bike and be of service to her. This way, logistically, they don’t have to figure out a path for a fifth bike on stage which would likely have been a safety issue and also no one had to lose their job. Because if they kept it at four bikes, one of the dancers would have had to take a seat. Taylor figured out how to insert Travis into the show without compromising anyone else’s stage time by having him join the two male dancers who usually accompany her during “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”, and assign him a role where it’s very clear, he’s still in the chorus, baby, nowhere near a speaking part, or even a featured role with an actual name.
I love this about her, LOL. That no matter how in love she might be, she’s never, ever going to give up being the main character.
But I also love that she’s found someone who has, at least so far, perfectly matches her thirst. This girl loves the attention, don’t ever think otherwise. At this point in her life, she’s suited to a thirsty boyfriend. Thirsty enough to enjoy this life, thirsty enough to thrive in this spotlight, but not so thirsty that he’d delude himself into thinking he deserves more than she’s willing to give him. Like, did you clock that he’s wearing red bottoms in his cameo? You can see them clearly when he’s carrying her back to the couch and that’s really the only distinguishing visual feature in his outfit that sets him apart from the other two dancers. My guess is that he would even have had to get her signoff before he could wear the Louboutins. As it should be. She’s the artist, and every single detail about her show needs to be cleared through her, even the shoes.
