Taylor Swift isn’t opposed to playing the Super Bowl halftime show, but she doesn’t plan to tackle that project while her fiancé, Travis Kelce, is still playing football.
Swift, 35, weighed in on the rumors that she was asked to play the 2026 edition of the event during her Monday, October 6, interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. When host Jimmy Fallon asked whether Swift turned down Super Bowl LX next year because of “performance footage,” the Grammy winner said no formal offer was ever made.
“Here’s the thing. Jay-Z has always been very good to me. Our teams are really close,” she explained. “They sometimes will call and say, ‘How does she feel about [mumbles]?’ And that’s not, like, an official offer or a conference room conversation. Our teams are really close. ‘How does she feel about it in general?’ And we’re always able to tell him the truth, which is that I am in love with a guy who does that sport on that actual field.”
Swift went on to note that she’s fully focused on football while Kelce, 36, is in the mix. “That is violent chess,” she quipped. “That is gladiators without swords. That is dangerous. The whole season, I am locked in on what that man is doing on the field.”
Why Fans Thought Taylor Swift Would Perform at 2026 Super Bowl
She added, “Can you imagine if, like, he’s out there every single week putting his life on the line doing this very dangerous, very high-pressure, high-intensity sport and I’m like, ‘I wonder what my choreo should be. I think we should do two verses of ‘Shake It Off’ into ‘Blank Space’ into ‘Cruel Summer.’”
Swift also explained that Kelce “would love” for her to do the halftime show at some point. “This has nothing to do with Travis,” she told Fallon, 51. “I’m just too locked in.”
Before Bad Bunny was confirmed as next year’s Super Bowl halftime show performer, rumors circulated that Swift turned down the offer because she was concerned about not having rights over footage. (The NFL typically retains rights over the halftime show and how footage is reused.)
Speculation that Adele would play the show also made the rounds online, but Bad Bunny, 31, was officially announced as the show’s performer on September 28.
The announcement was met with backlash from some conservative critics upset that the rapper (real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) performs in Spanish, but other artists have come to his defense — including Jennifer Lopez, who brought him out as a special guest during her own halftime show performance with Shakira in 2020.
“I don’t understand that. He’s one of the top artists in the world right now, probably the top,” Lopez, 56, said on Monday when Today’s Craig Melvin asked her about the controversy. “I’m super excited for people to see him. I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised because his music transcends language. It’s amazing what he’s done. He’s done something that a lot of people have never done in their life.”
