NEW YORK (AP) — Look what you made her do — Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”
It will arrive October 3, she revealed Wednesday. Swift, Max Martin and Shellback are the credited producers, which includes a notable absence of her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff. The final track, “The Life of a Showgirl,” will feature Sabrina Carpenter. A full tracklist is below.
Swift announced the album on her website shortly after a countdown timer expired at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday. No release date was announced, but her site said vinyl editions of the album would ship before Oct. 13.
Fans have long theorized that Swift's 12th album would soon arrive. On Monday, Taylor Nation — an official branch of the pop superstar’s marketing team — posted a TikTok slideshow of 12 images with the caption “Thinking about when she said 'See you next era…'” Swift is seen wearing orange in every image.
She also revealed the album artwork, which features the singer submerged in water and continues her color scheme of orange and mint green.
A special limited vinyl edition of the album will be released in “Portofino orange glitter,” according to a preorder page on her site. A special cassette edition is also available for preorder.
Sensing a pattern, eagle-eyed fans noticed that 12 minutes before Monday's Taylor Nation post, the popular “New Heights” podcast posted a tease for Wednesday. The show, hosted by Swift's boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce alongside his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, posted an orange image on social media with a mysterious silhouette that many believed to be Swift.
The podcast later announced that Swift would indeed appear on “New Heights” and a teaser video posted about her appearance showed her pulling the album from a briefcase.
Here's the full tracklist:
1. The Fate of Ophelia
2. Elizabeth Taylor
3. Opalite
4. Father Figure
5. Eldest Daughter
6. Ruin the Friendship
7. Actually Romantic
8. Wi$h Li$t
9. Wood
10. Cancelled!
11. Honey
12. The Life of a Showgirl (featuring Sabrina Carpenter)
Swift's episode of the “New Heights” podcast premiered at 7 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. It is available to stream in full on YouTube. Fans who'd prefer to listen to the show, instead, can do so via most podcast streaming platforms: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify and Wondery.
“The Life of a Showgirl” follows last year’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour, which raked in over $2.2 billion across two years and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.
The album is also Swift's first release since she regained control over her entire body of work. In May, the pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount paid.
In recent years, Swift had been re-recording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. The project was instigated by music executive Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog. Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault” music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work.
So far, there have been four re-recorded albums, beginning with “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021. All four have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Swift’s last re-recording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history.
The story has been updated to correct that Scooter Braun is no longer CEO of Hybe America, He serves on its board of directors and as a senior adviser.
FILE - Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour June 21, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his administration and allies have put the president’s name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.
“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”
"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.
The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.
For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.
As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.
That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.
Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.
The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.
“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”
Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”
Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.
Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.
Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”
Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.
McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”
“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.
More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.
Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.
The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.
In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.
“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.
He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”
FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
