We’re used to hearing her sing frankly and openly about her love-life, but it’s Taylor Swift’s relationship with alcohol that has been causing a stir since the release of her new album The Tortured Poets Department last week.
In her latest single, Fortnight, recorded with Post Malone and widely believed to be about her fling with 1975 singer Matty Healy, Swift confesses, ‘I was supposed to be sent away, but they forgot to get me/ I was a functioning alcoholic/ ‘Til nobody noticed my new aesthetic.’
So never mind the hunk on her arm, what about the drink in her hand?
Travis took her glass with her as she waded in the Atlantic during a trip to the Bahamas with boyfriend Travis Kelce
The couple lounged on the beach with each moving occasionally to fix cocktails from a makeshift bar that boasted bottles of liquor and was set up for them in the sand alongside a cooler full of sodas, mixers and beers
At Coachella, Taylor opted for a beer, as she and Travis took in the music
At the Grammys after party, Taylor squeezed every last drop of whatever she was drinking
Whether she’s watching NFL tight-end boyfriend Travis Kelce, 34, play his way to the Super Bowl, at home with BFF Brittany Mahomes, out with her glossy posse in New York or at a pop-up bar in Kansas City, Swift has been regularly seen with a chilled beverage in her grasp in recent months.
And while some may be zero proof, Swift, 34, has made plenty of references to alcohol use in her work. In Delicate she says, ‘We can’t make any promises now, can we babe? But you can make me a drink.’ While in Death by a Thousand Cuts, she sings, ‘I get drunk, but it’s not enough.’
And in 2019’s Cruel Summer – supposedly about the early days of her relationship with Joe Alwyn – she sings: ‘I’m drunk in the back of the car/And I cried like a baby comin’ home from the bar/Said ‘I’m fine,’ but it wasn’t true/I don’t wanna keep secrets just to keep you’
In fact in her last seven albums she has recorded no fewer than 40 songs that mention drinking or being drunk.
But TTPD is the first time she seems to label her drinking as any potential problem.
She said that she quit booze in preparation for her mammoth Eras Tour which saw her train ‘like a frat boy’ in a workout regime that her trainer recently claimed would see most people ‘throw up’. The grueling tour is due to restart in Paris on May 9 after a two-month hiatus, spending most of it with the seeming love of her life Kelce.
What better tiime to enjoy a toast than New Year’s Eve, which Taylor celebrated with Travis and their close friends Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittan
Brittany Mahomes posted this picture of Taylor and friends enjoying a drink
Back in January, it was revealed by Rye restaurant in Leawood, Kansas, that Taylor’s new favorite tipple is a French Blonde – a delicious mix of grapefruit, gin, Lillet and St Germaine served up in a coupe – after she spent a night drinking the concoction with Kelce and co.
Last week, lip-reading fan tismejackie took to TikTok to share what she said were exchanges between Kelce and Swift at their recent outing at Coachella.
Under the title ‘check on your swifties, were [sic] not okay’ she narrated the loved up and happy couple as they danced and kissed.
At one point Swift appearing endearingly thrilled to be placed so near the stage, at another she allegedly giggled to Kelce, ‘That was the best thing that happened tonight. Sorry I’m drunk.’
That was a far cry from the time when Taylor, then 21, told 60 Minutes: ‘I have drunk, but I’m not a drinker,’ adding that she did not like the taste of beer and when Lesley Stahl asked if she enjoys wine, she replied: ‘Not really’.
‘I don’t like, like drinking. I’m not like, “Man, that’s my favorite thing to do”,’ she added. ‘And I don’t drink to get drunk because that’s just not cute.’
Fast forward to the MTV Video Music Awards last September and the term ‘Drunk Taylor’ was trending following her energetic appearance in Newark, New Jersey, with fans wondering if booze played a part in her behavior that night as she won almost everything, danced to every song, and fangirled over NSYNC.
Footage showed her slurping drink after drink and while it’s impossible to know what was in each cup she was clearly having the time of her life and seemed in increasingly high spirits as the night wore on.
Taylor appeared on the British talk show Graham Norton with a wine glass in hand in 2022
Travis’s devil-may-care lifestyle seems to have rubbed off on Taylor as she no longer tries to maintain her clean-cut image
Boyfriend Travis Kelce makes no secret that he likes beer. He drank it from a funnel in 2022 during a golf tournament in Tahoe
In January, it was revealed that her new favorite tipple is a French Blonde – a mix of grapefruit, gin, Lillet and St Germaine
Taylor cheered on boyfriend Travis Kelce at this year’s Super Bowl
She and Blake Lively cheered on Travis during an October NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets
‘Drunk Taylor’ is a new look for a star who, until recently, was known as much for her carefully curated image as her intensely strong bond with her fans.
And she seems keen to share and make light of her drinking. On stage last June she spoke of, ‘taking up a slight case of alcoholism,’ during the pandemic shutdown when she penned her Folklore album.
In February when caught on camera at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas she theatrically chugged what appeared to be a beer before slamming the plastic cup down on the box ledge with aplomb.
She was happy to dance the night away – glass in hand – with Travis at XS Nightclub in Vegas after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl
And Taylor kept hold of her glass while exhibiting serious PDA at the party
Cheers: Taylor Swift shared a laid-back shot wearing minimal make-up, olive trousers and a sold-out knit sweater, featuring an allover daisy pattern
Meanwhile last month she and Kelce were pictured enjoying a romantic getaway in the Bahamas. They were photographed cooling down in the sea, plastic cups in hand and lounging on the beach with each moving occasionally to fix cocktails from a makeshift bar that boasted bottles of liquor set up for them in the sand alongside a cooler full of sodas, mixers and beers.
By her own admission, Swift is a girl heavily under the influence right now, at least when it comes to Kelce. In The Alchemy, the song on TTPD dedicated to him, Swift writes, ‘This happens once every few lifetimes/These chemicals hit me like white wine.’
So perhaps if this relaxed, fun version of Swift is drunk on anything right now it’s love.