Taylor Swift appeared last night on her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s, podcast to promote her upcoming 12th studio album, “The Life of a Show Girl,” and a lot of people tuned in.
The premiere live stream of the two-hour New Heights podcast drew up to 1.3 million viewers in its first hour, Variety reported. That’s nearly double the 800,000 viewers who tuned in to watch Donald Trump’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience during its first hour last October, according to CNN.
“I owe a lot to this podcast,” Swift said during the episode. “This podcast got me a boyfriend.”
Views of Swift’s appearance are still climbing and could eventually make it one of the most-watched podcasts ever. It also highlights a shift in the media landscape, where celebrities—and even politicians—are skipping traditional outlets like late-night TV and turning to podcasts instead. Amazon recently restructured its audio business with the goal of boosting sponsorships of its creator-led shows, which include New Heights.
The new record could also add fuel to the one-sided beef President Donald Trump has against the pop star.
About 1 hour and 44 minutes in, Swift’s fans crashed YouTube’s stream of the episode.
“Shoutout all the 92%ers and swifties for actually helping us break the internet,” the podcast’s X account posted last night.
Swift’s New Heights episode had already passed 11 million views just 19 hours after it dropped. For context, the most-watched Joe Rogan Experience episode ever is Elon Musk’s 2018 appearance, with 69 million views, while Trump’s episode from October currently sits at 59 million.
However, there is likely at least one person not happy with Swift’s success last night. Trump has been a big hater of the singer ever since she endorsed Kamala Harris for president during the election last year.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!,” he wrote on Truth Social just days after her endorsement in September.
He took another jab in February, referencing the Super Bowl, where Swift was reportedly booed.
“The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift,” he posted on Truth Social. “She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!”
And just this month, Trump brought her up again in a post praising actress Sydney Sweeney.
“Or just look at Woke singer Taylor Swift. Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying on TRUTH that I can’t stand her (HATE!). She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became, NO LONGER HOT,” wrote Trump.
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