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Accustomed as she is to breaking the internet, with new album drops and engagement announcements, Taylor Swift’s appearance on The Graham Norton Show set social media alight as the 35-year-old pop star showed off her sparkling engagement ring.
Asked about the “new bit of finger jewellery” given to her by fiance American footballer Travis Kelce, Swift described it as “the hardware upgrade”. The ring came with a price tag reported to be between US$700,000 and US$1 million.
Swift confirmed her engagement to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end five weeks ago after two years of dating, with an Instagram post carrying the caption: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” The post was liked 37.5 million times.
“He really crushed it when it came to surprising me,” Swift told Norton. “We had filmed a podcast episode [for Kelce’s podcast New Heights] and we filmed the podcast for about three or four hours, meanwhile behind his house he was having the back garden turned into this,” she said, gesturing to the image, overflowing with flowers.
“And one of the things that he put in there very strategically was a wall of hedges that weren’t there before, and inside the hedges was my tour photographer hiding,” Swift said. “He went all out. Ten out of 10. It’s really fun that we have the exact moment.”
For the highly-anticipated TV appearance, Taylor wore a black halterneck mini-dress with silver detailing. In one of Norton’s most crowded couches, she was interviewed alongside actors Cillian Murphy, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith and Domhnall Gleeson, and singer/songwriter Lewis Capaldi.
The appearance was part of Swift’s promotional tour for her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, which is released this weekend. Swift told Norton she wanted to complete the promotional tour for the album first, so she could then focus on planning her wedding.
“I want to do the album stuff first, and the wedding is what happens after, in terms of planning,” she said. “I think it will be fun to plan. Last year on the tour I was physically exhausted, sick and worn down, so to spark me up I had the album as a secret passion project behind the scenes. It stopped me hitting a wall.”
Norton, who had been in Wembley Stadium for Swift’s Eras Tour, praised her for the exceptional show.
Swift replied she had wanted to over-deliver for her fans. “We tried so hard to get it to be shorter than [three and a half hours],” she said, but added: “I really wanted people to get more than they expected. It felt like something I had to do.”
Swift knew the tickets were going to go fast. “I didn’t know how hard they were going to be to get,” she added. “People have lives and priorities and if they are going to dedicate any part of those lives and priorities coming to this big show, packing stadiums like this, I wanted to over-deliver on production, the length of it, the exertion, the surprises.”
Discussing her new album, Swift said the song Opalite was particularly personal to her, revealing that it is the favourite song of both her father Scott and her fiance.
“I learnt that just like they can do man-made diamonds, they can do man-made opals, Opalites, and I just thought that was such an interesting metaphor, that in life we sometimes have to make our own happiness, it’s not just there, it’s not just naturally in place,” Swift said. “[The song says] you are happy because you did that on your own.”
Taylor Swift on The Graham Norton Show, pictured with Cillian Murphy, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, Domhnall Gleeson and Lewis Capaldi.Credit: BBC
Swift is something of a regular on The Graham Norton Show, having appeared at least four times previously, in 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2022.
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During her first appearance on the show, with comedian John Cleese, the pair shared their love of cats in an awkwardly funny exchange which went viral. “It’s the weirdest cat I’ve ever seen in my life,” Cleese said, of an image of Swift’s cat. “It’s a monster,” Swift said in reply, when shown a photo of Cleese’s cat.
Then, when a fellow guest, cricketer Kevin Pietersen, confessed he was allergic to cats, Swift performatively inched closer to Cleese. Until Cleese described cats as “really unpredictable and cussed, like women” and Swift rebounded, to applause from the audience, with: “Ooh, we don’t wanna do that.”
Following her appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Swift is returning to the US, and will appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, next Monday, US time, and Late Night with Seth Meyers, next Wednesday, US time.
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