Taylor Swift may just be the most famous person in the world right now. Known for her clever songwriting and introspective, autobiographical music, Swift has become the first billionaire strictly with music. And it’s not hard to see how. In an age where no one is selling physical records anymore, seven of Swift’s albums have debuted with over one million pure sales in their first week. She’s also the highest-grossing female touring act, behind only U2, The Rolling Stones, and Elton John — and she will likely surpass them all
As a significant pop culture figure, Swift wields an insane amount of influence on things that she endorses, dramatically boosting sales and engagement. They call it “the Taylor Swift effect,” a phenomenon that’s not unlike the Midas Touch. Several opening acts on her worldwide Eras Tour have turned into household names overnight, most notably Sabrina Carpenter. Swift’s highly publicized romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has done wonders for the NFL. Kelce’s jersey sales have spiked nearly 400%. There was an increase in ticket sales and ratings for Chiefs games that Swift attended. The 2024 Super Bowl, which Swift also attended, was the most-watched Super Bowl in NFL history with 123.4 million viewers. It’s estimated that overall, she’s added $330 million in brand value for the NFL and the Chiefs.
More recently, seconds after the conclusion of September’s presidential debate between current Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Swift publicly endorsed Harris on social media, though it’s too early to discern her impact there. But in addition to sports and politics, Swift has publicly endorsed and declared her love for many movies and TV shows. She recently endorsed and posted about Deadpool & Wolverine, which is no surprise since she’s close friends with Ryan Reynolds and his wife Blake Lively. Let’s take a look now at some TV shows that Taylor Swift has endorsed and proclaimed her love for over the years.
7 Queer Eye
Queer Eye is Netflix’s reboot of the original TV series from 2003. This reality TV series features a brand new “Fab Five,” who spend a week using their expertise to help improve someone’s life situation. All of them have since become famous TV personalities. Queer Eye has been praised for its representation of the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities.
In 2019, Taylor Swift appeared alongside Ellen DeGeneres in the “Burning Questions” segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. One of the “burning questions” that Ellen hit the music icon with was, “What is currently your favorite TV show?” Swift proceeded to rattle off a number of her favorite shows, several of which are on this list. And one of them was Queer Eye. Swift’s music video for “You Need to Calm Down” is known for featuring numerous LGBTQ+ celebrity cameos, which includes the entire Fab Five from Queer Eye.
6 Downton Abbey
Set in the early 20th century, Downton Abbey is a British historical drama that found a lot of love here in the US. It follows the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants, capturing their lives on the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey. Featuring an all-star British cast that includes the beloved Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey was a critically acclaimed success that has since expanded into two films, with a third one officially on the way.
Downton Abbey is another favorite series that Taylor Swift mentions in the “Burning Questions” segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Clara Bow,” a track from the recently released and best-selling album The Tortured Poets Department, was named after silent-film actress Clara Bow. But the song and its lyrics might also contain a Downton Abbey Easter egg, which Swift is known for sprinkling throughout her songs. In Downton Abbey, a female character experiments with a new hairstyle and asks one of the footmen how she looks. “Like Clara Bow,” he says, a possible reference to the song’s opening lyric, “You look like Clara Bow in this light.”
5 Killing Eve
When Taylor Swift was asked for her favorite show on Ellen’s “Burning Questions,” the first series to come out of her mouth was Killing Eve.Killing Eve is another critically acclaimed TV series from the UK. It’s a thriller that follows Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), a British spy who’s chasing a psychopathic assassin. Swift gushed about Killing Eve in a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Oh God, it’s so intoxicating. We’ve only ever seen that kind of endearing badness in men — until recently when we started to see female characters that are able to break through the constant likability challenge we find ourselves in.”
A cover of Swift’s song, “Look What You Made Me Do,” appeared in season 3 of Killing Eve. The cover was performed by Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club. Fun fact: Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club is a fake indie band that Swift, her brother Austin, and her producer Jack Antonoff created, and the song’s lead vocals are provided by Austin himself.
4 Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
The tremendous success of the original Law & Order turned it into a franchise that’s launched various spin-offs. And Law & Order: SVU is one of the most famous and popular ones on television. This police procedural crime drama follows the detectives of the Special Victims Unit, who investigate and prosecute sexually-based crimes.
Taylor Swift is a well known fan of SVU. One of her cats, Olivia Benson, is named after one of the lead characters on the show, played by Mariska Hargitay. The two stars, Swift and Hargitay, have seemingly struck up a friendship over the years. Hargitay was a special guest on Taylor Swift’s1989 World Tour and appeared in her “Bad Blood” music video. In a cool act of reciprocation, Hargitay recently named her own cat Karma after Swift’s hit song, “Karma.” Hargitay has apparently talked to Swift about appearing on SVU. While it hasn’t happened yet, the possibility does exist that we’ll get a Swift guest appearance in a future SVU episode.
3 Game of Thrones
The sprawling narrative of Game of Thrones juggles multiple characters and storylines across the fictional world of Westeros, gradually intertwining them all into one cohesive story. HBO’s fantasy epic was a global phenomenon that dominated pop culture, amassing millions of fans. And one of them was Taylor Swift.
The pop star has publicly mentioned Game of Thrones numerous times. It was included in her list of favorite shows in the “Burning Questions” segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. At the 2021 BRIT Awards, upon receiving her BRITs Global Icon Award from Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams, Swift declared at the podium, “Anybody who knows me knows that Game of Thrones is my life.” She then lamented over how she couldn’t hug Williams because of social distancing rules at the time.
Why did she lament, you ask? Apparently, Williams’ character Arya Stark is who Taylor Swift identifies with most. Arya and her quest for bloody vengeance served as the inspiration behind Swift’s hit song “Look What You Made Me Do.” Game of Thrones itself was a major influence on what Swift perceives as her comeback album Reputation. Specifically, “I Did Something Bad” was spurred by Sansa and Arya’s scheme to kill Littlefinger, while “King of My Heart” was inspired by Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo’s romance.
2 Grey’s Anatomy
Thanks to its 20-season run (and still going), the network medical drama Grey’s Anatomy has attracted fans across generations. And one of those huge fans is Taylor Swift. The music icon has posted about the show many times on social media. She penned a detailed summary of her life-long obsession with Grey’s Anatomy, calling it “the best show ever created,” on MySpace in 2008. That same year, one of Swift’s songs, “White Horse,” was featured on the show’s fifth season. Her video reaction to hearing the song on the show went viral. Season 10 later gave the musician props by naming one of its episodes after the iconic Taylor Swift song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”
Perhaps most famously, Swift named one of her three cats Meredith Grey, after the show’s lead character, played by Ellen Pompeo. And just in case you were wondering, Swift’s third cat is also named after a fictional character, though this one is from the movies: Benjamin Button.
1 Friends
As a New York City native, it’s no surprise that Friends — a wildly popular TV series about a group of friends, who are navigating early adulthood, their careers, and their love lives in New York City — resonates with Taylor Swift.
The starlet has professed her love for the show in a number of interviews. In her 2016 “Vogue 73 Questions” interview, Taylor Swift called Friends her favorite TV show of all time. She also says, in that same interview, that she wishes she had written the show’s iconic theme song, “I’ll Be There For You” by the Rembrandts, strictly for the royalties — not that Swift needs the money anymore, now that she’s reached billionaire status. During her interview with “Extra” special correspondent Alecia Davis, Swift said that she watches endless Friends marathons for comfort.
Swift has professed her love for Friends through more than just words. The singer brought out Lisa Kudrow, who played the show’s quirky lead, Phoebe Buffay, during one of her concerts, and together, they performed Phoebe’s iconic song, Smelly Cat. In another instance, the stage for one of Swift’s concerts resembled the iconic fountain from the show’s opening credit sequence, squirting water all over the stage.
