Swift reveals what unfolded onstage, what quietly happened offstage, and how the illusion held together in between.
It was rare, but I was there. Here I am, a year later, reminiscing about the confetti that froze mid-air and the screams that filled Singapore’s National Stadium. I was dressed in a pink, sparkling garb, and dancing with about 60,000 people. It was indeed the time of my life, fighting dragons with Taylor, and the rest of the Swifties for three hours that night.
Fresh off her engagement and the release of “The Life of a Showgirl,” her End of An Era docuseries could not have come at a better time this month. Casual spectators, observers and the sanctimonious soliloquists can only stay intrigued (and/or pressed—both things can be true, sadly) about the lore built throughout the tour.
The documentary puts her at the center, but does not revolve entirely around her. She plugs in in-depth stories of her roots and her support system—stories of her family, the team that shaped The Eras Tour, and conversations that have not been published in the media. But, most importantly, she finally addresses the questions that were beyond just numbers or records. After all, this is her manuscript, the souvenir from her trip to our shores.
Yes, the tour was a financial success—everyone and their mother knew that—but the questions the fans wanted answered were never just about numbers or records. They were about the myth itself: what unfolded onstage, what quietly happened offstage, and how the illusion held together in between. Across six episodes, the documentary finally pulls back the curtain and answers them.
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Question 1: How did the tragedies that befell the tour affect Taylor?
Throughout The Eras Tour, Taylor fought through physical, emotional, and mental ailments to commit to the concert dates she put out. Storms were merely bad weather for her, and a chance to elevate her performance to cinematic levels (the lightning strikes throughout her “reputation” set was gold to watch!). But tragedy did not fail to make its mark throughout the tour, with a planned terrorist attack in Vienna, the murder of young Swifties at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Liverpool, and the death of a Brazilian Swiftie from dehydration and heat.
Taylor addresses this in episode 1, tearfully recounting these incidents. She stumbles through the words and shares that she cannot reflect the suffering but instead radiates positivity because she has to.
“I’m gonna be fine because when I meet [the families of the Liverpool victims], I’m not gonna do this. I’m gonna be smiling. So any of [the crying] gets out of the way before you ever go on stage. You lock it off. Three and a half hours. They don’t have to worry about you.”
The episode cuts to a scene where Taylor is crying moments before the concert. She weeps in her dressing room shortly after meeting the families of the Liverpool victims, with her mother Andrea comforting her. Taylor says that showing any kind of vulnerability throughout her performance will set a negative tone for the fans attending the concert.
Question 2: What did the “reputation” gold body suit mean?
Taylor loves to tease her fans by incorporating easter eggs in her music. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she shares, “I think the best messages are cryptic ones. Easter eggs can be left on clothing or jewelry. This is one of my favorite ways to do this because you wear something that foreshadows something else, and people don’t usually find this one out immediately, but they know you’re probably sending a message.”
“1989 (Taylor’s Version)” was a result of this. In her LA show in 2023, fans were waiting for blue versions of her Eras Tour costumes as a sign of that announcement. Taylor Nation went live on Instagram (which they almost never do), and streamed the announcement during her acoustic set.
With Reputation’s black and red bodysuit being the only version for more than a hundred shows, fans went ballistic to see the new black and gold bodysuit during the first concert of her Miami leg in October 2024. But her long-time stylist Joseph Cassell burst fan theories in episode 3.
The red and black bodysuit’s fabric was discontinued, and they had to come up with a different color and fabric, hence the gold and black. They could have showcased the new bodysuit earlier had there not been a misplaced bust fit during the initial fittings.
Don’t worry—I was disappointed too.
Question 3: How did Travis Kelce come to be in Taylor’s life?
Yes, we know the invisible rope – er, string – that tied both Travis and Taylor together by fate. But did you know that there was one person who actually made this happen? As they say, mothers know best. In the case of one Andrea Swift, mothers do best too.
“I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings so I was a little butt hurt,” Travis said in September 2023 on New Heights, the podcast he hosts with his brother Jason.
While Taylor remained blissfully unaware of her future beau, it was Andrea who began the matchmaking process. She contacted her cousin Robin after catching Travis on the news, and Robin—being their Kansas City Chiefs informant—raved about its tight end.
“Robin goes, ‘Oh my God! He’s the nicest guy and you know what, he really loves his mom!’ I went ‘ding, ding, ding, ding,’” recalls Andrea. So while the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned, who knew that Andrea would be the one to bring together Mr. 87 and Miss 13? She definitely did keep it one hundred.
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Question 4: What was going on backstage?
As someone who considers herself lucky to have attended The Eras Tour, I was naturally intrigued by the elaborate set and production design. Though Taylor has always been known to create worlds for her tours, it was wonderful to see how she built this one .
But what I did not expect was to hear the stories of the ones behind the scenes. We got to see how her choreographers Mandy Moore and Amanda Balen came to be, how queer dancer Whyley had his dream realized performing in the all-female Ready For It song, the reasons why band members Paul, Amos, Mike lasted so long in Taylor’s stead, and the costume transitions per era. She even talks about a hand injury in episode 3, where she tripped on her Evermore era dress, and slid so far out that she had to wear a makeshift bandage for the rest of the concert that night.
Kam Saunders, one of Taylor’s main dancers, shares that it is unheard of in concerts to know the singer’s background acts. “But now you know each of us by name.”
While Taylor credits her success to the people around her, the way she shows it is another story. In episode 2, she talks about Bonus Day and spending weeks handwriting notes to her staff and crew about their individual bonuses (on top of their salaries).
The amounts that each received remains unknown but reports share that she gave out $197 million in total. A CNN report said she paid each of her Eras Tour truck driver $100,000 in bonuses after the first North American leg wrapped up in 2023.
In the documentary, she likens the feeling of Bonus Day to Christmas morning. “Bonus day is so important, because setting a precedent with The Eras Tour is really important to me. People who work on the road, if the tour grosses more, they get more of a bonus, and these people just work so hard and they are the best at what they do. It’s fun to write the notes. It’s fun to think about everybody’s lives that they’re gonna go back to… making that worthwhile for them is really—it feels like Christmas morning when you finally get to say thank you.”
Question 5: How did the surprise songs come to be?
“So it’s Long Live verse and chorus, New Year’s Day verse and chorus, The Manuscript bridge into Long Live bridge, into the down verse of Long Live into ‘Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I would recognize anywhere,’ into ‘Hold on to the memories, they will hold onto you,’ into Long Live chorus, but slowed down to halftime with the New Year’s Day chords underneath it, into the last verse of The Manuscript.”
“Wow, that’s complicated,” breathed Andrea in the dressing room.
In episode 6, Taylor goes into great detail about her final set of surprise mash-ups. She plays these during the Acoustic Set, a concert section that fans (including myself) theorized about and looked forward to. In 2024, she began mashing up two or three songs to surprise fans.
For the last night of The Eras Tour, Taylor played A Place in This World (“Taylor Swift”) and New Romantics (“1989”) on the guitar, and Long Live (“Speak Now”), New Year’s Day (“Reputation”) and The Manuscript (“The Tortured Poets Department”). Diabolical combinations aside, surprise song guests and concertgoers alike are awestruck with Taylor’s musical process.
Gracie Abrams herself mentions this in the same episode when they do a mash-up of Is It Over Now? (“1989”) and That’s So True (“The Secret of Us”). She quips, “How does she think of this?” as she listens to a voice note from her megastar friend prior to guesting in Vancouver. Sabrina Carpenter also mentions the “smart” move in episode 3 when Taylor mashes up Is It Over Now (“1989”) and Espresso (“Short N’ Sweet”) because they both reference coffee.
Taylor considers the acoustic section a creative challenge, one that keeps her on her toes to decipher which song pairs well with what.
End of An Era closes with a full-length performance of the mash-up Taylor practiced in her dressing room. A montage of moments from the concerts flashes right after, set to the tune of Happiness from “Evermore.” More than comfort, the documentary in itself is the stage that Taylor uses to address the concerns of the public. Not that she needed to, but in a time where words can be misconstrued, the documentary provides a safe space for Taylor to do just that.
She acknowledges the perspective people have on her, one that she didn’t wish upon for herself but has to live with anyway. “Sometimes people just see this side of me – this pop star side, but people forget I have a life outside of the tour. I have hobbies, which I completely had to give up for this,” she laughs.
But now she takes this as a collective win, her victory lap around the sun. What she will have moving forward is something to expect and inspect through the clues and crumbs she leaves out for the fans.
She sings, “Now and then, I re-read the manuscript, but the story isn’t mine anymore.”
It’s ours.
The six-episode End of An Era is now streaming on Disney+.
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