How was your weekend? Did you finally catch up on your laundry? Think about how you really need to water your plants before it gets too hot, then totally forget to do it anyway? Take a selfie with the first, second, and third in line for Britain’s throne, verbally flip the bird in a classy sort of way at a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, make Tom Cruise dance, and bring your gigantic boyfriend onstage in a top and tails for a surprise cameo in your sold-out show?
Wait, maybe that last bit was just Taylor Swift’s weekend in London.
Swift capped off her three-night run of her Eras Tour at London’s Wembley Stadium Sunday with a jaw-dropping first: Bringing boyfriend Travis Kelce out on stage as part of her intro to “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” her catchy ode to high-functioning depression from The Tortured Poets Department. Kelce, who also attended Swift’s Friday and Saturday concerts accompanied by the likes of brother Jason Kelce, sister-in-law Kylie Kelce, and new pals Prince William, Prince George, and Princess Charlotte, emerged to screams as one of Swift’s tuxedoed handlers in a choreographed transition bit between “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” which ends with Swift crumpled on the ground, and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
Typically, two of Swift’s dancers work together to scoop Swift off the ground and deposit her on a red chaise lounge before a mimed 1920’s-coded sequence (shouts to Clara Bow) in which pouty starlet Swift droops and stomps while being told over and over to get out there and give the fans what they want. On Sunday, Travis Kelce was among those handlers, even delivering a jaunty heel-click and several grinning doffs of his top hat before he took over for the two dancers, carrying Swift in his arms up the stage to the couch. Throughout the sequence, he fanned himself and Swift, and also mimed applying powder to get her stage-ready (with a little for himself too, because why not?), grinning throughout. Remember: He is an actor now! Ryan Murphy made it so! Swift, before launching into the song, looked at Kelce and smiled, blowing a kiss just for him.
It’s yet another notable occurrence in a very busy weekend, even by Swiftian standards. Not only did she go Instagram grid official with Kelce by posting a selfie with the royals, but this is also the first time one of her partners has been featured in one of her concerts while they were dating. It’s a certified Big Deal. Consider: She and ex Joe Alwyn dated for six and a half years, and he was never out there doing bits with her.
Symbolically, too, you can’t help but clutch your heart just a little bit: “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” can be interpreted as being about Swift’s controversial romantic ties with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy, whom she was linked to over a decade ago, and then again post-Alwyn split. The song shoots barbs at an ex-lover, expressing disgust with questions like “were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?” and “I just want to know if rusting my sparkling summer was the goal.” The Eras Tour choreography finds Swift, as mentioned, collapsed motionless on the ground at the end of the song, leading into “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” and her proof that she can paste on a smile and perform, no matter the state of her love life. Now consider the symbolism of Travis Kelce, extremely tall man who seems to make Taylor Swift smile a lot, scooping Swift up from her lowest point and carrying her, helping her move on to get what she needs to do done.
Oh, and that this all happened in London, hometown of both Alwyn and Healy? So long, London, indeed.
A representative for Taylor Swift did not immediately answer Vanity Fair’s request for comment.
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