Don’t call the police if I ever go missing — just ask the Swifties to solve it. Taylor Swift’s iconic appearance on New Heights with boyfriend Travis Kelce became the biggest talk of the entertainment world last week. Not only did Taylor reveal he next album, The Life of a Showgirl, but she gave fans a unique, candid look into her personal life like never before, while being effortlessly funny and charming in the process.
In the wake of the podcast appearance there’s a lingering theory among the Swifties, and it’s that Taylor dropped big-time hints about performing at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2026. Honestly, they’ve made me a complete believer. Truth be told, I can’t tell you where all this started, or which Patient-zero-Swiftie started this ball rolling — so credit to essentially all of them here.
On the podcast Taylor said that she “thinks about sourdough about 60% of the time.” There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking about a top-tier bread to this level, but there’s a definite chance there’s more to this than meets the eye.
Sourdough is inexorably linked to the city of San Francisco. It’s fundamentally the city’s most recognizable food contribution along with the Mission-style burrito. Where is the Super Bowl being played in 2026? Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers.
Then there’s that “60%” number, which Swift might not have plucked out of thin air — because which is the next Super Bowl?
Yup, it’s Super Bowl LX, or 60. So if Swift is “thinking about sourdough 60% of the time,” it could easily mean “I’m thinking about the Super Bowl halftime show.”
One of the first things that Taylor said after being introduced by Jason Kelce on New Heights was to thank him for screaming about her “for 47 seconds.” That is an oddly specific number, one which Tay Tay could have plucked out of thin air — or it was another hidden code.
Why is the number 47 significant? Well, astute Swifties went and looked at the stops on her Era’s tour, and the 47th show was on July 29, 2023 — and it was at Levi’s Stadium, home of the Super Bowl. It also so happened that this performance fell on a Sunday, just like the Super Bowl.
Taylor’s whole ethos right now is tied to the number 12. That’s the defining characteristic of this album announcement. Fans have dived down the entire rabbit hole about how the podcast appearance was 12 weeks after she got the rights to her old music, that The Life of a Showgirl was posted about on August 12 at 12:12 AM, etc.
The other thing that’s 12? The age of Travis Kelce’s NFL career. He entered the league in 2013, making him a 12 year veteran now. Couple this with the fact that Taylor said she wouldn’t perform the halftime show until she owned her back catalogue and it means that weaving football into this makes too much sense.
The background of Travis and Taylor was very intentionally set up. There was football memorabilia from Travis, music items from Taylor — and a host of books people are looking at to glean information about the next album. One thing was oddly out of place, however: Travis’ replica of the Lombardi Trophy.
Every Super Bowl winner gets a scaled-down replica of the Lombardi Trophy, and it was clearly too big to fit on the shelf vertically — so they elected to lay it down, almost like a paperweight. It could have easily fit on the top shelf without problem, but they elected to post it so the football portion was directly between them.
The Lombardi Trophy is the award for the winner of the Super Bowl, and if we believe the books are the building blocks for the themes in The Life of a Showgirl, then the Super Bowl literally tops off its arc.
Swift is known for her easter eggs, and it’s something she discussed on the podcast. There’s intentionality she weaves into music videos, on-stage actions, and social media that essentially creates a whole other level for fans to dive into if they want to go full Pepe Silvia on her career.
Swift added that all of her easter eggs point back to music, not her personal life — which means the Super Bowl halftime show theory absolutely fits. At this point I have completely bought into the idea that Swift has agreed to do the halftime show for the first time ever.
