August 13, 2025: Taylor Swift announces track list and release date for new album on ‘New Heights’ podcast

Our live coverage of Taylor Swift’s appearance on the “New Heights” podcast has ended for the day. Catch up on everything we learned here or scroll through the posts below.

Taylor Swift got candid in a nearly two-hour-long pre-recorded podcast with her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce that brought in more than a million viewers tonight.

Here’s what we found out on the “New Heights” podcast:

The new album:

Her relationship:

Acquiring her masters:

Her hobbies:

Her parents’ health:

You can also watch the unveiling here on YouTube

From a PR and marketing standpoint, this week’s “Life of a Showgirl” rollout has been a smashing success, regardless of a tech glitch on YouTube. It all centered around Taylor Swift’s appearance on a podcast, which speaks volumes about the splintered state of media in 2025.

Swift has participated in TV interviews and magazine features before. But this podcast chat — co-hosted by her boyfriend Travis Kelce — was very different. Because it was so personal, and seemingly so casual, listeners felt like they were let into Swift’s life in a whole new way.

For a guest like Swift, a podcast like “New Heights” is a safe space: You know you’re not being interrogated by a hard-nosed journalist, you know you’ll have plenty of time to say whatever you want, and you know it’s going to be edited to make you sound great. In other words, you get control, comfort and attention. It’s no wonder why A-listers increasingly prefer the podcast format over traditional interviews.

Taylor Swift performs onstage during The Eras Tour in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on July 4, 2024.

The “dads, Brads and Chads” might feel a way about the crossover between the NFL and the Swifties, but that hasn’t stopped the momentum.

Case in point, all the excitement surrounding today’s podcast episode (it’s why we are all here BTW) is just the latest example of why Taylor Swift is such a major, major star. When you couple her unparalleled status as a musician with her awe-inducing romance with footballer Travis Kelce, who has his own significant fame and accomplishments, it feels like a match made in the uppermost echelon of celebrity heaven.

There was plenty of conversation over on the NFL’s Facebook page after “New Heights” shared the clip in which cohost Jason Kelce is the ultimate hype man for Swift, rattling off her many accomplishments.

Some couldn’t understand why there were so many complaints about how much attention was paid to Swift every time she attended her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s football games over the last two years.

“Men used to build cathedrals and pyramids and now they just complain about Taylor Swift being shown at a football game for 27 seconds,” one person posted in the comments.

Swift is very aware of it all, given that she joked on the podcast that “I think we all know that if there’s one thing that male sports fans want in their spaces and on their screens, it’s more of me.”

But after all we learned today, such as Travis Kelce insisting that Swift is an athlete (she swears she’s not) and the cute way she has of telling him he’s not speaking truth (“He’s just saying words”) – plus all we learned about her new album – it’s hard to not see this podcast episode as a major contributor to even more growth in terms of her fan base.

Taylor Swift reveals her new album with Travis Kelce on the New Heights podcast.

Taylor Swift said announcing her new album on the “New Heights” podcast was her latest attempt at a surprise – even though people don’t always appreciate it.

“I work so hard to try to surprise fans, and they’re like, ‘I don’t want to be surprised,’” she said jokingly.

But deep down inside, they actually do, she believes.

“I know that when I can really get them and surprise them, that it was so worth it. Because that’s what entertainment is, really: Is giving people something to escape, to seek their teeth into, to – like, we’re world-building, you know?”

While Taylor Swift was discussing her latest album that comes out October 3, Jason Kelce said, “it’s the life,” and the podcast feed on YouTube ended abruptly after about 1 hour and 45 minutes of conversation.

Don’t worry, the “New Heights” podcast wrote on X that it hit a glitch, but would be back shortly. As of 9:30 p.m. ET, the YouTube version had not updated with the remainder of the podcast.

While the YouTube stream went down, listeners on Spotify and other platforms heard another 15 minutes of conversation about Swift’s baking skills, her love of the Eras Tour and the moment she went onto the football field for the first time.

“Hopefully people never thought that we’d go on this podcast and announce an album,” Swift said. “I was hoping that that’s something that the fans would be like ‘That’s from left field.’”

“Wow she went on with those two idiots to release this?” Jason joked in response.

The headline and post have been updated with more details.

Swifties near and far have taken to social media to share their excitement about Taylor Swift and her “New Heights” appearance.

From details about her upcoming album to hearing her discuss her favorite moments with Travis Kelce, fans and devotees are loving the content.

This is the first time we’re hearing Swift discuss certain topics and share new insights into her personal life.

Here’s just a glimpse at what Swifties are sharing on social media:

Taylor Swift performs on stage during The Eras Tour in London, England, on August 15, 2024.

Taylor Swift is espousing the very healthy habit of detaching from the internet.

“If your algorithm is giving you either criticism of yourself or adulation or praise, you’re creating an ecosystem in which you’re the centerpiece of the table,” she said today during her podcast appearance on “New Heights,” hosted by her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce. “And I just don’t think that’s healthy. Like that’s not the way I want to move through the world.”

“So I do detach from the internet in a huge way,” she added. “I have had my comments disabled on Instagram for like 10 years now? And I don’t miss it.”

To put a finer point on it:

“My business is making music and taking care of my fans,” she added.

Folks, you know what to do: go outside, call a friend. And don’t forget to find your business, and run it!

Jason Kelce brought up the media attention toward his brother and his brother’s girlfriend’s relationship as well as numerous relationship theories, in which Jason Kelce said he’s “way too invested.”

But what do Taylor and Travis think about it?

“We don’t really,” she said. “I don’t see a lot of things. I’m of the firm belief that like, you know…if you’re getting your feedback from the internet and from comments and stuff I just think…anything you feed your brain, it will internalize, anything you feed the internet, it will kill.”

After 20 years in the music industry, she said “it’s pretty hard to hurt my feelings.”

Travis Kelce said he’s learned from her “how to be a pro about it.”

“There’s still some whacko theories from the beginning that I was like ‘Oh no, how is she handling this,’” he said. “The last thing I wanted to do was screw this up.”

His lady love said finding the humor in online discourse helps how she sees it all.

“It’s at a point where something can be about me, my name can be in the actual headline and it can still be none of my business,” she said.

Bravo, Taylor.

Taylor Swift explains the orange connection to her new album: 'I just always liked it"

00:24 • Source: CNN

As “Swifties” have spent recent days searching for meaning in the messaging tied to Taylor Swift’s new album announcement, the singer has clarified one thing.

“So what is the significance of the color orange?” Jason Kelce asked Swift of the color scheme of the project.

“I’ve just always liked it, Jason,” Swift responded. “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.”

Orange is the new red, apparently.

If her forthcoming album has any theme, it’s “everything that was going on behind the curtain,” Swift explained.

“This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time,” she said.

She added that one of her main goals was to have “melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it” and lyrics that were “just as vivid but crisp and focused and completely intentional.”

Jason Kelce then asked if he’d get to hear the album ahead of time, to which Swift said no.

“We don’t trust you at all,” she said.

He replied: “Honestly, smart.”

Of her album cover, she said, she aimed to communicate that the album “isn’t really about what happened to me on stage, it’s about what I was going through off stage.” It’s “the life beyond the show,” she said.

Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs head coach, talks to members of the press during a news conference at The University of Kansas Health System Training Complex on June 19, 2025 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Asked if there is any truth to Kansas City Chief’s Head Coach Andy Reid’s story that he played matchmaker for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Swift had no problem weighing in.

Swift said the coach has been friends with her dad for years. Her father, btw, is “the most social” dude ever.

“He’s a maniac,” the younger Swift said. “He will make a friend in like an airport in 1971, have a five minute conversation and still be talking to that dude twice a week now.”

So Scott Swift plus Andy Reid apparently really know how to run a play.

Taylor Swift appears on the New Heights podcast with Travis and Jason Kelce.

If there’s one thing Taylor Swift is good at, it’s hiding Easter eggs in her music for fans, and on tonight’s podcast she explained the art of that game she likes to play.

An Easter egg is a hidden clue that Swift plants in her music, marketing material, outfits or shows to hint at a future project or deep-cut reference to something in her past music – like the color orange and the number 12 for the announcement of her next album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”

Her favorite easter egg was during her commencement speech in 2022 at NYU when she was given an honorary doctorate. Swift says she planted “so many lyrical easter eggs in that speech.”

And fans pieced those hints together when her “Midnights” album was released later that year.

The people who want to experience music in “normal way” Swift says won’t even notice the easter eggs but other fans will observe every little detail.

Taylor Swift says her father, Scott, “is doing incredibly well” after having quintuple bypass surgery earlier this summer.

“It all happened really quick,” Swift said, detailing her father’s health crisis, which was discovered after he took a resting stress test. After his surgery, she said, “we all moved in with him for the whole summer.”

Swift also shared that her mother ”got a new knee” and is “doing great.”

“She’s scampering around — well, not quite scampering yet. But she’s doing great,” she said.

Taylor Swift watches the action prior to a game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs in Sept. 2024.

Taylor Swift is adamant that her relationship with sports was pretty nonexistent before dating Travis Kelce.

“I grew up in Pennsylvania. I always heard my dad yelling at the screen, watching Eagles games. That was always the sports sounds I heard in my house,” Swift said today. “However, I was up on my room playing guitar, learning instruments, playing piano. I was focused on different things. I was like so laser-focused on music, and that’s how I was in school.”

“I would go to sporting events so I could sing the national anthem. It was a means to an end to get me to do music,” she continued. “I know every halftime show from the Super Bowl, but I didn’t watch the sports.”

At that point, Kelce quickly butted in that he knew Swift was an athlete by the way she “power skipped” down the stage while performing on tour.

Despite rejecting his notion, Swift did say her connection to sports changed after Kelce’s arrival into her life.

“I definitely became obsessed with sports when it came to (Travis Kelce). I’m competitive on his behalf. But like, if you and me are going to go against each other in something athletic, I’m going to let you win,” Swift added.

She also pointed out that while she’s not invested in participating in sports when she’s playing solo, she’ll step up when it’s a team sport.

“If I’m on his team and we’re playing beer pong, I’m really trying because this matters to him. I’m a team sports gal,” she said.

But if theres one thing Swift wants you to know, it’s that she is “not an athlete” and she will “never be.”

Taylor Swift reveals Travis Kelce's 'green flag'

00:34 • Source: CNN

Taylor Swift, just like us, works to avoid relationship red flags.

During the “New Heights” conversation, Swift revealed the “green flag” she saw early on as she got to know her boyfriend, Travis Kelce.

Swift talked about getting to know some of his friends in the viewing suites at Kelce’s games with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Get ready for this SAT word: triskaidekaphile.

That’s a person who loves the number 13 and that is Taylor Swift. Fans know her obsession with it as she has explained that the number has been pivotal in her life forever.

Now we also know that her man is into numbers too.

Travis Kelce pointed out that 87 — which is his Kansas City Chiefs jersey number — is his number and 13 is Swift’s.

Add them together and they are 100.

Do with that what you will.

Jasson Kelce added his own twist on triskaidekaphilia, posting about the viewership numbers of the podcast today.

Taylor Swift dove into her current obsessions during her podcast appearance on “New Heights,” hosted by her NFL star boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his former NFL star brother, Jason Kelce.

Let’s get into it:

“I love to paint, I love to cook, I have a different baking obsession every six months,” Swift told Jason Kelce.

Travis Kelce says “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

Might I suggest this couple is actually all about the cheese.

“Right now, we’re very deep in a sourdough obsession that has taken over my life,” she said.

Travis Kelce says he is very grateful to be running and training as much as he is right now, because “I am getting the caloric intake.”

Taylor Swift said he asked her to send him two loaves of sourdough at training camp.

Meanwhile, she has been perfecting a “funfetti sourdough” for the girls at the moment.

“I’m talking about bread 60% of the times now,” she said.

Taylor Swift during her Eras Tour in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Travis Kelce knows how to work a room, especially when his girlfriend Taylor Swift is in it.

“As much as…you want to give ‘New Heights’ credit, I give the Eras Tour credit.”
Swift replied, “Yeah? Tell me more.”

“Because if I never would have gone to that show and just been mesmerized and just been captivated and then left with such a desire to want to meet you, I would have never went on here and told everybody how butt-hurt I was,” Kelce continued. “I had never been so engulfed in the curiosity of who you were.”

His brother quipped in response: “The best part of that statement is that you didn’t know what the word engulfed meant before you met Taylor”

Travis Kelce went on to explain how Swift ultimately “knocked his socks off.”

“It’s like you see you on the stage and you see how crazy you can get an entire stadium going and then I get you in a room and it’s like I’ve known you forever. It’s like the easiest conversation I ever had and it was just so much fun. It knocked my socks off.”

Taylor Swift’s favorite rerecording was her 2012 studio album’s titular track “Red,” the singer revealed on the pre-recorded “New Heights” podcast tonight.

Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce called watching fans scream the 10-minute version of the song one of the most iconic parts of her tour.

Remember: Before Swift owned the master recordings of her extensive music catalogue, she took her time to rerecord her hits to reclaim control over her recordings.