Taylor Swift surprised the audience with a special video message during the Tuesday, November 21, episode of Dancing With the Stars, which honored her music and groundbreaking year.
“Hey guys it’s Taylor. I just want to say thank you so much for having this me-themed night on Dancing With the Stars,” Swift, 33, told the DWTS audience while explaining why she couldn’t be there in person. “I can’t wait to see what your amazing choreographers and my friend Mandy Moore have in store. I so wish I could be there because I’m on tour in Brazil.”
The six remaining couples danced to songs from Swift’s expansive discography throughout the episode, which was deemed “A Celebration of Taylor Swift.”
Moore, the lead choreographer of Swift’s Eras Tour and a longtime choreographer on Dancing With the Stars, joined the tribute episode as a guest judge. Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli rounded out the judging panel.
Fans have been clamoring for a Swift-themed night on the ABC reality series since October, when pro Peta Murgatroyd let slip that it was in the works. “We will be having a Taylor Swift week here,” she told Billboard at the time. “Am I allowed to say that?”
Pro Artem Chigvintsev also hinted that Swift, 33, would feature heavily in a future episode while appearing on wife Nikki Garcia’s “Nikki & Brie Show” podcast with his season 32 partner, Charity Lawson.
“Another night I am excited for, and I wanted to know, Charity, if you are excited as well, is Taylor Swift. Are you a Swiftie?” Garcia, 40, asked, to which Lawson, 27, replied, “I am not a major one, but I do love her, so, yeah. I am super excited about that.”
Lawson noted that she “did request” one of Swift’s songs during the first week of the season. “They were like, ‘You can’t do it,’” she revealed. Chigvintsev, 41, then chimed in to add, “Maybe they said no because …” before trailing off.
After more than a month of speculation, cohost Alfonso Ribeiro finally confirmed during the November 7 episode that a Swift-centric night would occur two weeks later.
While Swift has never been a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, she has a long history with the show. She made her debut on the series in 2009 when she performed “Jump Then Fall” and “Love Story” during season 9. The following year, she returned to sing “Mine” and “White Horse” during season 11. In 2012, she took the stage again for “We Are Never Getting Back Together” during season 15.
The competition’s tribute to Swift comes amid an especially busy year for her. In addition to releasing her rerecorded albums and a concert film in recent months, she is in the midst of her record-breaking Eras Tour and will play her final dates of the year in São Paulo, Brazil, later this week. The tour will then resume in February and run through December 2024.
