While Swifties were busy digging for all the Easter Eggs on Taylor Swift‘s just-released 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Friday morning (Oct. 3), the singer dropped by the U.K.’s Graham Norton Show to chat up the LP, and, of course, her summer engagement to Travis Kelce.

In her first TV appearance since the August proposal heard ’round the world, Swift, 35, told Norton that Chiefs tight end Kelce, “really crushed it in surprising me,” in speaking of the instantly iconic special moment caught in a photo of the NFL star down on his knee asking for Taylor’s hand in the middle of a forest of flowers.

According to People, Swift — wearing a black mini dress with a bejeweled halter neckline — told Norton that while the couple were chatting on Kelce’s New Heights podcast, the baller “had a complete garden built out the back of his house to propose in.” And, not for nothing, Swift said that Kelce’s proposal was a big swing that totally landed. “He went all out — 10 out of 10” she said, subtly flashing the impressive engagement ring during the taping where she appeared alongside actors Cillian Murphy, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith and Domhnall Gleeson and fellow singer Lewis Capaldi.

Cagey as ever, Swift kept any wedding plans close to the vest, saying “you’ll know,” when she has something to say about the blessed event. “I want to do the album stuff first, and the wedding is what happens after in terms of planning. I think it will be fun to plan,” she said, with People describing her vintage-style ring as having a “massive old mine brilliant cut diamond, a rectangle-cut diamond,” which is estimated by one expert to be around 7-10 carats in a bezel setting.

As she noted on Kelce’s New Heights earlier this summer, Swift reiterated that recording Showgirl in the midst of her grueling, record-setting Eras Tour was a way to keep her inspired. “I was physically exhausted — sick and worn down — so to spark me up, I had the album as a secret passion project behind the scenes,” Swift said of her off-tour flights to work with producers Max Martin and Shellback during the European leg of her summer 2024 tour. “It stopped me hitting a wall.”

Swift also told Norton that the new album is not as introspective as her recent LPs, saying that in recent years she’s had a “different perspective and like storytelling at a little bit of a distance, so it isn’t like doing a complete autopsy of myself.” Alluding to some growth as an artist, the singer added that her “wheelhouse is bigger now… I feel I can do anything now while running in heels. I am confident to write higher choruses, jump an octave, and do falsetto stuff. I have more confidence after the tour.”

Swift will be back on TV on Monday night (Oct. 6) when she stops by The Tonight Show and then again on Wednesday night (Oct. 8), when she’ll be the only guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

It’s showtime! Taylor Swift‘s The Life of a Showgirl has finally arrived after months of buildup, complete with 12 new songs.

Released on Friday (Oct. 3) and produced entirely by the pop star, Max Martin and Shellback, the album finds Swift looking back on her past two years of life — which she largely spent on the road on her global Eras Tour. On “Father Figure,” she interpolates George Michael’s 1987 hit of the same name, and on title track “The Life of a Showgirl,” Sabrina Carpenter joins her for their first official duet since touring together last year.

“The Fate of Ophelia” serves as the LP’s lead single, with Swift premiering a music video for the track in her The Official Release Party of a Showgirl event that will run in theaters all weekend.

Arriving about 18 months after 17-week Billboard 200-topper The Tortured Poets Department, the 14-time Grammy winner’s newest full length almost feels like a complete 180 for her. Following the black-and-white aesthetics and melancholy lyricism of TTPD, the high saturation and sparkles associated with Showgirl — which is comprised of flashy pop bangers — feel even more vibrant.

Leading up to the release of Showgirl, Swift kept fans guessing about the project through a number of methods. Teaming up with Spotify, the singer dropped a handful of lyrics through a pop-up immersive experience in New York City, and with Apple Music, Swift revealed even more snippets by capitalizing “random” letters in her lyrics.

On Friday night, Swift will appear on The Graham Norton Show to promote the album. In the coming days, she’ll do the same on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night With Seth Meyers.

Listen to Swift’s new album The Life of a Showgirl below.

“Bangers.” That’s the word Taylor Swift used to describe all 12 songs on her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and the world knew what that meant. Swift’s last album, 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, may have scored the superstar’s biggest opening-week debut and ruled the charts for months on end, but the sprawling, relatively mournful project was a departure from the immaculately constructed pop anthems that had defined her career (give or take a Folk-more) for a decade.

When Swift announced that its follow-up was created in Sweden during the Eras Tour with pop geniuses Max Martin and Shellback — who helped create some of Swift’s most enduring pop smashes from the mid-2010s, and who hadn’t worked with her in eight years — the expectation of wall-to-wall bangers that Swift set seemed attainable, given their skills and shared history. The timing for a return to anthemic pop felt right, too: with Swift recently engaged to NFL star Travis Kelce and the Eras tour conquering the world, a full-length celebration seemed to be in order.

And while The Life of a Showgirl is composed of classically designed pop tracks, with standard verse-chorus arrangements and rarely exceeding four minutes in run time, Swift’s eagerly anticipated Return to Bangers is not, say, 1989 Pt. II. Instead of coming back with party tracks, Swift has synthesized the commitment to pristine hooks that she shares with Martin and Shellback, an increasingly idiosyncratic lyrical slant, and the mid-thirties perspective of her past few albums. The result is a collection of songs that are immediately engrossing and among the most affecting of Swift’s career, while also focusing on topics like Hamlet and suburban bliss. Call it Bangers for Adults.

For the countless fans who have grown up alongside Swift, The Life of a Showgirl offers a settled, grown-up phase of the love stories that she’s been telling for decades — although the album doesn’t rely on clichés, or go heavy on the cheese. Swift makes no bones about the fact that her happy ending has come after a lot of regrets, missed opportunities and heartache, and that, while she’s achieved previously unknown heights as a global pop superstar, her time in the spotlight has not been perfect. Yet she uses The Life of a Showgirl to showcase the different sides of her personality, perhaps more wholly than any previous album.

Pissed-off songs like “Actually Romantic” and “Father Figure” detonate like Internet grenades, “Wood” and “Wi$h Li$t” find Swift at her most playful, and “Honey” and “Ruin the Friendship” slice through the noise with the emotional songwriting of an expert. Not surprisingly, Martin and Shellback once again serve as welcome foils, packing a ton of instrumentation into each production and streamlining the final product into a finely crafted mix. And she does indeed have a proper top 40 banger at the top: “The Fate of Ophelia” is a stick of dynamite opening the album, and sounds like it will join her collection of smashes in no time.

The limit does not exist to how high Swift can keep soaring — anytime her downfall (or even a notable downturn) has been predicted, she climbs higher and winks at her naysayers. By pivoting back to pop anthems with humor, empathy, a little fury and a lot of wisdom, Swift ensures that ascent will continue. The Life of a Showgirl is one of the most grounded, well-rounded projects of Swift’s career — a surprise, in the context of the hype preceding it. That doesn’t make it any less successful.

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Thursday Night Football continues its biggest season yet with a matchup between a high powered Los Angeles Rams offense and a motivated San Francisco 49ers. Matthew Stafford and the Rams will host Brock Purdy and the 49ers for the latest TNF game of the 2025-2026 season, streaming exclusively on Prime Video on Thursday (Oct. 2).

With both teams tied at 3-1, this NFC West divisional match up is a can’t miss game, because whoever wins will take first place for now. Like other TNF games, pregame coverage will launch at 7 p.m. ET, one hour before the Rams vs. 49ers kickoff. This season, a total of 16 games will stream on Prime Video, including the Black Friday game and the NFL Wild Card Game.

Not familiar with Prime? Read on for the 2025 Thursday Night Football schedule and a guide on how to join Amazon Prime for free.

How to Watch Thursday Night Football Games on Prime Video

To watch Thursday Night Football, you’ll need a Prime Membership. Signing up will grant you access to Prime Video to watch the Rams vs. 49ers game as well as a whole suite of benefits, including fast same-, next-, or two-day free shipping; discounts at Whole Foods Market, access to exclusive shopping events — like Prime Day and Black Friday — and more.

Amazon is offering a 30-day free trial for new users who want to test out the service. When the trial is up, you can either cancel the streaming service altogether, or you can keep watching for $8.99/month for the base Prime Video plan. But, if you want all the perks that come with Amazon Prime, it goes for $14.99/month (or $139/year) — a nearly 25% savings.

Prime Video is Amazon’s streaming platform where you can watch Thursday Night Football and other sports, including NBA, MLB, WNBA, One Championship and soccer.

How to Watch Thursday Night Football Games on Prime Video

Prime Video is the exclusive streaming destination for Thursday Night Football. All games will begin streaming live at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. Pre-game coverage starts at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. Here’s the full lineup of NFL games airing on Prime video this season.

Remaining Prime Video Thursday Night Football Schedule:

George Michael‘s “Father Figure” is reimagined by Taylor Swift on The Life of a Showgirl‘s fourth track, a new song that shares a title and incorporates an interpolation of Michael’s original that became a hit in 1988.

The late Michaels’ estate issued a statement on Swift’s recording on Thursday (Oct. 2), hours before the official release of Showgirl.

“We were delighted when Taylor Swift and her team approached us earlier this year about incorporating an interpolation of George Michael’s classic song ‘Father Figure’ into a brand new song of the same title to be featured on her forthcoming album,” George Michael Entertainment said in a note posted on Michael’s social media accounts. “When we heard the track we had no hesitation in agreeing to this association between two great artists and we know George would have felt the same. George Michael Entertainment wishes Taylor every success with The Life of a Showgirl and Father Figure.”

Michael’s “Father Figure” held steady for two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988; it was one of four No. 1 smashes from Faith, his 1987 solo debut LP. (The other three No. 1s from Faith: title track “Faith,” “One More Try” and “Monkey.”)

“‘Father Figure’ is just a very specific experience that I wrote about,” Michael once said of the song’s origin. “I think there’s a definite pattern in people’s lives where they move away from their parents and then they look for that replacement. It’s always talked about in terms of boys kind of being discarded, in terms of their mothers, and then finding a replacement. But you don’t necessarily always hear about that with women, although I’m sure it’s just as much the case, that women in a sense look for a father. Not necessarily a father, but they look for that replacement.”

In 1989, “Father Figure” earned Michael a nomination for a Grammy in the best pop vocal performance category, and parent album Faith won album of the year — and Swift was born.

The year of 1989 would later became the title of Swift’s fifth album — her ’80s pop-influenced, Billboard 200 chart topper from 2014 that, like The Life of a Showgirl, features production by Max Martin and Shellback.

Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, available at midnight ET on Friday, Oct. 3, marks her 12th full-length studio album. “Father Figure” is among 12 tracks on the set, which is led by opener “The Life of Ophelia.”