It was the engagement photo shoot seen round the world. Taylor Swift, billionaire pop mogul, is betrothed to NFL star Travis Kelce. They announced the news on Instagram with a carousel of professional photos, set to a Swift song, with an incredibly millennial caption. Kelce was tagged with his official handle @killatrav.
Push alerts pinged and the people went wild. Group chats lit up. TikTok creators started making skits. Donald Trump offered his congratulations when the news broke during a cabinet meeting. Google showered your screen with confetti if you typed in her name. Ralph Lauren sold out of the dress she wore so fast the website briefly crashed. Reddit forums where people with parasocial conspiracy theories that Swift is secretly gay and in a stage-managed relationship for PR purposes went into meltdown.
Anyone with a passing interest in the psychology of cults could have predicted that last one. Festinger’s seminal text, When Prophecy Fails, illustrated how doomsday cultists engage in curious acts of cognitive dissonance when the apocalypse fails to manifest. Perhaps for some people it’s easier to believe in conspiracies than the fact that the pop star who started out singing about being overlooked at school by jocks is about to marry the biggest jock of all.
More interestingly, what Swift’s engagement coup de grace demonstrates is the ironclad control she has over her public image via the internet. Instagram was the obvious choice for dropping the engagement bombshell. Fans found out like they might see an old schoolfriend’s big life news pop up on their feed, dovetailing neatly with the carefully curated Relatable Girl persona Swift builds with her music and puzzles.
The NDAs that would have been required for the photographer and florist alone boggles the mind
It’s impressive but not unexpected that Swift kept those photos tightly under wraps until the exact moment she pressed the button. It’s no mean feat to outfox the celebrity gossip machine in an age where everyone and their dog has a smartphone. The NDAs that would have been required for the photographer and florist alone boggles the mind.
But then Swift has the budget and the mastery of the media that publications are haemorrhaging. Compare that engagement shoot, with its lavishly romantic setting of a rose garden and a socking great diamond ring perfectly matched to her aesthetic to the sad affair that is the US Vogue September issue, with Emma Stone shot against a plain studio background.
Emma Stone graces the September issue of Vogue Magazine.
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) August 11, 2025
🔗: https://t.co/PXkHia7unQ pic.twitter.com/HmaI8hLOcA
The Swift-Kelce engagement is a clear sign of just how significantly the power balance has shifted in the relationship between celebrities and the media.
Access, particularly for musicians, used to be key. The more gonzo journalists would embed on tours, reporting from the front lines of music. Cover shoots for glossy magazines used to be arranged months in advance, with top editors guarding the gates to global recognition. Paparazzi used to stalk their famous prey and sell photos for life-altering sums of money - the more compromising the better.
Celebrity engagements were once more a game of cat and mouse than brand merger and consolidation. When the UK’s own pop princess and football star Victoria Beckham and David Beckham decided to tie the knot in 1998, they called a press conference at a hotel within 24 hours. Beyonce and Jay Z attempted to marry in private in 2008, confiscating guests phone at the door, but the tabloids ferreted out as many details as possible.
Today, it’s a different story. A-list celebrities with a profile to match Swift’s rarely give interviews to journalists, and certainly not ones where they will be challenged. If they do an interview, they’ll pick another famous pal to chat with or go on each other’s podcasts. They’ll post their news from their own social channels, leaving fans to disseminate the updates and the press to play catch-up.
I doubt very much reading this is the way you found out about the happy news.
Swift has perfected the art of cutting out the traditional press machine entirely with this precisely timed seasonal news roll out. Countdowns appear on her personal website. She announced her next album - The Life of a Showgirl - on Kelce’s sports podcast New Heights. She’s not just side-stepping the media machine. She’s running her own.
Now the hunt will be on to find scraps of information - the dress designer, the invite design, the venue. But I would bet money that Swift will have that locked down. This is a billionaire CEO who has demonstrated she is utterly determined to control her narrative outright.
Swift began re-recording her albums when the masters were sold out from under her. She echewed traditional publishing with The Eras Tour Book, self-publishing via her imprint Taylor Swift Publications and distributing directly to Target. She bought back the masters for those albums for a reported $360 million. I highly doubt Swift will be selling those wedding photos to a magazine for coverage - she’d probably rather print her own to sell straight to the fans.
Now we can just get our news straight from the filthy rich sources
Swift isn’t the first billionaire to pick up the media reins. Many men have made themselves rich out of publishing empires. The newest crop of the world’s richest men have acquired their preferred outlets. Musk has X, formerly Twitter. Jeff Besoz has the Washington Post. But no one has shown themselves as proficient in commanding the conversation while profiting from it as Miss Americana.
It’s fitting that Swift chose Instagram, owned by Mark Zuckerberg, whose invention of Facebook has undermined the traditional news media to near collapse. Now we can just get our news straight from the filthy rich sources. It’s a very pretty ring, though.
India Block is a columnist at The London Standard
