New issue of US Weekly, Taylor Swift is on the cover. As you know, Taylor’s been very, very undercover this entire year. Does she still have bangs? Does she still wear red lipstick? We haven’t seen her in months. Maybe she shaved her head? How do you know she hasn’t? Taylor’s ability to live low for an extended period of time speaks to the fact that when she wants to? She can actually disappear. So when she’s kissing her boyfriend by the sea in Rhode Island, well, you know, just in case there was any doubt about how that works, if there are still people out there who think paps intrude at will and celebrities have nothing to do with it.

Anyway, according to US Weekly, Taylor’s been hiding away working on new music for a new album she’s planning on releasing in the fall. Which you don’t need a source to tell you. Everyone at this point is anticipating a fall 2017 Taylor Swift album drop. US Weekly’s “sources” are saying she’s not recording in Nashville, LA, NY, or London though. That she’s booked time at an “out of the way” spot. Sure.

But what sources?

US Weekly is now officially under American Media Inc ownership, a sister publication to The National Enquirer and Star Magazine and Radar Online and OK!, with a seriously reduced staff. And I can tell you for sure that many of US Weekly’s top reporters, with the best connections to celebrities, have left the magazine (more on this later today). So…

What sources?

Taylor Swift sources?

Any legitimate Taylor Swift sources would know the inside baseball of gossip. They are well aware of the shift in the gossip reporting/tabloid landscape. They’re not talking to US Weekly anymore. But US Weekly is capitalising on the great Taylor Swift mystery. Where has Taylor Swift been? What is she doing? Which Taylor certainly doesn’t mind us asking, doesn’t mind that people miss her. So while this might not be a story that was sourced through bonafide Taylor connections, it is certainly an appeal to them, and to Taylor, that the new US Weekly wants to be on her side, that they’re willing, for now, to tell any story that’s on her side. What we’re seeing is a courtship between new US Weekly and celebrities. If you’re into the inside baseball of gossip, you’re interested in how this plays out.