Swifties are dealing with the news that Taylor Swift won’t be the 2026 Super Bowl halftime performer after months of speculation.
The 35-year-old even seemed to drop major Easter eggs in her Aug. 13 appearance on fiancé Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights. It just felt like this was her year, especially after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fanned the flames during an early September appearance on the Today show.
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“We would always love to have Taylor play,” Goodell said while teasing that “maybe” she was their top choice. “She is a special, special talent, and obviously she would be welcome at any time.”
Other A-list music names seemed to be in the mix, from Miley Cyrus to Adele, but on Sept. 28, the NFL announced Bad Bunny. So what went wrong during the negotiations with Swift?
Taylor Swift performs onstage at the “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at SoFi Stadium on August 7, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
In a Sept. 24 report from Rob Shuter’s Substack, the NFL couldn’t meet Swift’s demands — demands that were not unreasonable for a pop star of her level to ask for.
“She wasn’t asking for favors, she was asking for respect,” a music insider told Shuter. “Taylor knows her worth. She knows the kind of ratings she brings, the global attention she commands. She wasn’t about to hand that over for free.”
If you didn’t know, musicians perform for free, but their production costs are covered for the halftime show. This deal didn’t exactly sit well with the “Shake It Off” singer, who had spent years battling for her masters, which were bought by Scooter Braun.
“They expect the biggest artists in the world to do it for ‘exposure.’ Taylor Swift doesn’t need exposure. She wanted a deal that reflected her value,” the source added.
The controversy surrounding her masters began in June 2019 when Braun bought her work from her former record label, Big Machine. It was a major deal because the music manager owned some of Swift’s most successful albums, including Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation. She then maneuvered around Braun by re-recording many of her albums, known as “Taylor’s Version.”
In May, Swift was finally able to reclaim her rights to her music — it was a hard lesson learned and the end of a long saga.
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she added, thanking fans for their support as the drama played out,” she wrote on Instagram. “I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now.”
Before you go, click here to see every Super Bowl halftime performer since 1993.
Beyoncé Super Bowl Halftime Show
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