Arts & Entertainment·Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift’s podcast appearance breaks Trump record, nearly doubling his viewershipBy Chris MorrisBy Chris MorrisContributing WriterChris MorrisContributing WriterChris Morris is a contributing writer at Fortune, covering everything from general news to the game and theme park industries.SEE FULL BIO Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.Kansas City Star—Getty Images1.3 million people tuned into the first hour of Taylor Swift’s podcast appearance.
That’s nearly twice as many that initially tuned into Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Trump, who had a nine-month headstart, has more overall listeners, but Swift’s appearance is catching up quickly.
Back in May, President Trump took to social media to declare Taylor Swift was “no longer ‘HOT’.” He might want to rethink that position.
The pop star’s appearance on the New Heights podcast this week attracted 1.3 concurrent million viewers in its first hour.
That’s just shy of twice as many people who tuned into The Joe Rogan Experience last October, when Trump was a guest. Trump’s appearance brought in 800,000 viewers in its first hour.
Swift’s appearance also led to a massive boost in rs for the Travis and Jason Kelce podcast, with the total jumping from 2.85 million to 2.91 million people.
The appearance was such an event that it overwhelmed YouTube. An hour and 44 minutes into the podcast, the premiere cut to black.
The show’s official account on X/Twitter posted minutes later that the “will be back shortly” once nical issues were corrected. In the longer run, Trump’s appearance still has more overall views.
To date, it has been watched 59 million times in the past nine months. Meanwhile, as of Friday morning, the YouTube version of the New Heights podcast had hit 15 million viewers.
But Swift could catch up swiftly, though.
On Thursday, Spotify said the New Heights episode, where she announced her new album and gave fans an insight into her life, was one of its most of the last year, increasing the average number of listeners by 3,000%.
Trump has had something of a one-sided feud with Swift since 2020, when she endorsed Biden in the presidential race.
He attempted to revive that in May and then again early August, calling the singer “woke” and claiming “Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying … that I can’t stand her (HATE!).
She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became, NO LONGER HOT.” Swift has not replied to Trump’s taunts.
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