Taylor Swift’s New Heights appearance already looks set to become one of the most-watched podcast appearances of all time.
The pop superstar, 35, appeared Wednesday night on the podcast her boyfriend Travis Kelce co-hosts with his brother, Jason. More than 1.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the YouTube version of the podcast, which ran for almost two hours.
The figures dwarf the 800,000 people who tuned in to Donald Trump’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in its first hour last October, CNN reported, citing CNN data analyst Harry Enten.
On YouTube, nine million people have watched Swift’s interview in 13 hours, while Rogan’s Trump episode was watched 26 million times on YouTube in its first 24 hours, according to The Daily Beast.
New Heights’ YouTube channel also saw a spike in subscribers from 2.85 million to 2.96 million at the time of writing.
The most-watched episode of Rogan’s wildly successful podcast is Elon Musk’s 2018 appearance, which boasts 69 million YouTube views. Trump’s episode has had 59 million views.
“I could see them beating the Rogan-Trump video,” one industry observer told MarketWatch on Thursday.
During the wide-ranging episode, Swift discussed her relationship with Kelce and her much-anticipated new album, The Life of a Showgirl, explaining that the 12 songs were inspired by her experiences during her record-breaking Eras Tour. She also revealed that the album would feature a collaboration with fellow pop star Sabrina Carpenter.
“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,” she said. “It just comes from like the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life. That effervescence has come through on this record, and like, as [Kelce] said... bangers.”
She added that the album will stand alone without bonus tracks, confirming: “There's no other songs coming.”
Trump will likely be displeased at Swift’s podcast appearance outperforming his own. The president became a vocal critic of the “Shake It Off” singer after she publicly endorsed his opponent, Kamala Harris, in the build-up to the election last year.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,” he wrote in all caps on his Truth Social platform at the time.
In May of this year, the president followed up with a post saying: “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”
Swift first announced her new record in a preview clip from the episode posted earlier this week. The album is now available for pre-order and will be shipped before October 13, according to Swift’s website.
The multi-Grammy-winning pop star’s previous album was The Tortured Poets Department, released in 2024. In the same year, she ended her Eras Tour, which sold tickets worth an estimated $2.2 billion (£1.6bn) in its nearly two-year run, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time for two years in a row.
She has not yet mentioned whether she plans to tour the new album.
