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Taylor Swift revealed even more behind-the-scenes secrets of her Eras Tour in the latest installment of her new docuseries.
Episode 4 featured an appearance by Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce, who made a surprise cameo during a June 2024 stop on the European leg of The Eras Tour. The episode chronicled how his stage debut came together during his summer break from the NFL.
“The way that he just comes to life when the lights are the brightest, people talk about that all the time with him,” Swift, 36, said of Kelce, also 36. “They’re like, ‘The moment’s never too big for Travis. The lights are never too bright for Travis.’”
Episodes 3 and 4 of Taylor Swift: The End of an Era debuted on Disney+ on Friday, December 19, one week after the first two episodes dropped on the streaming services. In the premiere, Swift broke down just how difficult it was to add songs from The Tortured Poets Department to the setlist while still trying to keep the album from leaking ahead of its release.
“When we had done the first half of the tour, what the fans didn’t know at the time was that I was writing a brand-new album, The Tortured Poets Department, and in the middle of me releasing the album, we had to be all hands on deck, creating a brand new era to put into the show to represent that album,” she explained in episode 2. “We built this top-secret rehearsal facility for us to lock in the setlist. … And then we put together all new choreography. Learning choreography, all just hearing it in our heads, because they can’t play the music on speakers because it’s not out yet.”
Keep scrolling to read the biggest revelations from episodes 3 and 4 of Taylor Swift: The End of an Era, which are now streaming on Disney+. The two-part finale will premiere Tuesday, December 23.
Taylor Swift Was ‘Always Planning’ Her Future Tours
Taylor’s mom, Andrea Swift, recalled her daughter having huge ambition starting in her childhood.
“Very early on, she just knew she was gonna have to work hard,” Andrea, 67, explained in episode 3. “I mean, it just depends on how far back we wanna go. But it escalated from school play, theater group, karaoke nights, calling around to festivals and amusement parks to see if there was a spot for a little kid with a guitar and a couple of speakers. … And she, from a very early age, always knew exactly how she wanted things to be. And she was always planning what her headline tour would be like.”
Andrea noted that Taylor was always focused on her art rather than the perks that came with it, saying, “You know, I never heard her say the word ‘fame’ or ‘money.’ It was always just about the opportunity to go sing her songs and have everybody else singing those same words back.”
Making the New ‘Reputation’ Bodysuit
Throughout the tour, Taylor wore tons of different outfits across each era but famously only had one look for Reputation — until she debuted a new bodysuit when the tour returned to the U.S. in October 2024. Her longtime stylist, Joseph Cassell, explained in episode 3 that part of the reason it never changed was because they ran out of the fabric that was used for the first one.
When Cassell initially presented Taylor with the new one, it didn’t fit quite right, but after seamstress Diana Aghajanyan made adjustments, the pop star was obsessed.
“It’s now my favorite,” Taylor quipped after trying it on. “I didn’t see this coming. I’m shocked.”
An ‘Eras’ Vocalist Battled Cancer During the Tour
In episode 3, background vocalist Jeslyn Gorman revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer after the tour began. According to Taylor, Gorman’s diagnosis was the “first blow” the tour “family” had experienced together.
Gorman took six months off for chemotherapy and surgery, losing about 75 percent of her hair in the process. She ultimately returned to the tour after finishing radiation — and came back so quickly that her coworkers were inspired by her strength.
“I cannot believe that she was back in a few months,” Taylor marveled. “The will to come back and do the hardest show ever, none of us could believe it. I still can’t.”
Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ Costume Changes Were Insanely Complicated
“Every outfit change is about a minute and 15 [seconds] or less,” dresser Jestina O’Dell explained in episode 3. “Our fastest quick-change though is 39 seconds with her in the room.”
Taylor’s mom, Andrea, added, “It is like watching a NASCAR race.”
Under the stage, there were four quick-change booths constructed on different levels, and Cassell noted there were 20 quick-changes in the show.
“There were moments where I thought, ‘I don’t know if these costume changes are gonna happen in time,’” Taylor admitted. “I’m only off the stage for a maximum of two minutes at a time. … You have no idea the panic of worrying you’re not gonna be dressed in time for the song to start.”
She recalled one moment where she tripped over her Evermore dress and busted her knee before landing on her palm and ripping the skin off. She was bleeding as she changed into the Reputation suit but proudly noted she still hit her cue. “Wasn’t late,” she said with a smirk.
Taylor Swift’s Mom Encouraged Her to Date Travis Kelce
Taylor encouraged her mom to tell the story of her first meeting with Kelce in episode 4 after a clip played from his now-famous “New Heights” recap of his Eras Tour experience.
“I’m looking at the headlines and perusing around what’s on the internet, and I see that this guy came to your show and he brought a friendship bracelet and wants to meet you,” Andrea recalled. “And so, of course, I call up my resident expert on [the] Kansas City Chiefs, my cousin Robin, and I go, ‘Tell me about this guy named Travis Kelce. And she goes, ‘Oh, my God. He’s the nicest guy. And you know what? He really loves his mom.’ And I went, ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding.’ Then I said, ‘Now, how in the world am I gonna get her to meet him or whatever?’”
Taylor recalled her mom saying something like, “You gotta start doing something different.”
“Listen, it was so earnest,” Andrea added of Kelce’s original podcast shout-out. “I thought it was the sweetest thing in the world that he came to your show. He brought you something from your world. To me, that really said a lot. I thought that was really sweet and I liked it.”
‘The Eras Tour’ Helped Taylor Swift’s Mental Health After Breakups
Recalling writing The Tortured Poets Department while on tour, Taylor described music as “form of therapy” for her.
“Tortured Poets album is like this purge of just, like, everything, everything bad that I felt for two years,” she explained in episode 4. “It was a really rough time in my life, so the songs reflect that. Feeling like I’m not a person, I’m just this, like, big conglomerate that no one sees as a real human being, and especially not men that I date. And in the whole process just being like, ‘Nothing works, there’s no one for me in the world.’”
She went on to hint that the tour really helped her navigate the aftermath of her splits from Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy.
“There were points in this tour when the tour was the only thing that was really keeping me going in my life,” she recalled. “But there were never points in the tour when I thought, ‘Oh, you know what? I want to quit the tour ’cause the tour’s hard.’ No, my personal life was hard. I went through two breakups on the first half of this tour, and that’s a lot of breakups actually. The show was what gave me purpose and was what I could use to get me out of bed. So, the tour has never been the hard thing in my life. The tour has been the thing that has allowed me to find purpose outside of the s*** that was going on in my life. Men will let you down, The Eras Tour never will.”
How Travis Kelce’s ‘Eras Tour’ Cameo Came Together
Taylor said she thought Kelce would fit into the TTPD skit where dancers pick her up off the stage, but she didn’t want to suggest it to him for fear of freaking him out.
“I can’t remember how it came up,” she said. “I think we were just joking around about him doing it, like him going up there with Kam [Saunders], and it became very clear that he, like, wasn’t joking.”
Kelce’s cameo in London — which Taylor called “magically entertaining” — went off without a hitch.
“He really is one of the happiest people I think I’ve ever met, which I adore,” Andrea gushed of her future son-in-law. “He just brought a lot of happiness, which I think is what he does in a lot of his circles. He brings a lot of happiness to the room. And that particular night he brought a lot of happiness to a lot of fans. It was hilarious.”
How Sabrina Carpenter’s Surprise Appearance Happened
Taylor recalled in episode 4 that she got a message about Sabrina Carpenter wanting to attend the New Orleans stop of The Eras Tour while she was on a short break from her own tour. The “Anti-Hero” singer wanted to ask her to appear during the surprise songs set but was initially hesitant because it was Carpenter’s day off.
“I was like, ‘Is this, like, child abuse for me to even ask her on her one day off?’” Taylor joked. “I know she’s, like, 25, but still.”
Carpenter, of course, agreed, and the duo performed a mashup of her hits “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” and Taylor’s song “Is It Over Now?”
Why Taylor Swift’s Relationship With Travis Kelce Works
In episode 4, Taylor explained that her romance with Kelce is successful in part because he understands what it’s like to be hugely famous and have a job that frequently requires being away from home.
“Relationships on tour has always been something I’ve really struggled with, because it always felt like the tour was taking away from the relationship,” she said. “Somehow I was not able to do both and feel like I was nurturing both at the same time, even though I would try and try and try and try. Somehow there’s been this dynamic shift with Travis, because it’s shocking how many similarities we have towards our jobs and how we view them and how we view each other. We both have jobs where we both go out in NFL stadiums and we entertain people for three and a half hours. His with considerably more violence than mine, but he’s not in heels.”
She added, “But it’s our passion. We’ve been chasing this since we were little kids. So, I don’t think I ever thought I’d meet a guy who had that same trajectory. And I’ve realized with this person in my life that just was the right fit for me, you can have the two passions coexist and they actually fuel each other. Ultimately, we love cheering each other on. That’s rad. … Travis is just very comfortable with, conceptually speaking, a big life, because he has one. And it’s not one that he has reluctantly, he’s very comfortable with it.”
