(NewsNation) — After Taylor Swift revealed her new album on the latest episode of boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast, diehard fans were quick to look for Easter eggs she may have dropped leading up to the announcement.
On Wednesday, Swift appeared on the “New Heights” podcast, which Kelce cohosts with his brother Jason, to announce her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”
A teaser for the episode was posted to Instagram at 12:12 a.m. ET on Aug. 12.
Taylor Swift explains the rules of her Easter eggs
“Well, I have some parameters,” Swift said on the podcast. “There are do’s and don’ts, right? I’m never going to plant an Easter egg that ties back to my personal life.”
She said the clues were “always going to be” related to her music.
Fans pointed out several clues Swift may have dropped leading up to the album announcement, according to USA Today, including wearing 12 rubies on her earrings at the Grammys and using 12 “D’s” in “oh my godddddddddddd” in an Instagram post celebrating her longtime friend Selena Gomez’s new album.
“You don’t need to know what that is,” Swift said. “But if you want to look at that, then it’s there.”
Taylor Swift puts ‘cryptic clues’ in her music
While Swift told Jimmy Fallon in 2021 that she includes “cryptic clues” in her music, sometimes fans are so invested that she’s felt compelled to continue dropping hints.
Swift said her favorite Easter egg drop was during the 2022 commencement speech at NYU, where she received an honorary doctorate.
“I put so many lyrical Easter eggs in that speech that when the ‘Midnights’ album came out after, the fans were like, ‘The whole speech was an Easter egg,'” she said on the podcast.
Fans pry into Taylor Swift’s personal life, but is she part of the problem?
While Swift has said the Easter eggs aren’t related to her personal life, that hasn’t stopped her diehard fans, better known as Swifties, from prying — and some critics say she’s creating the problem.
“When we see swifties following her around to the point of stalking her, I can’t help but think that she created this situation herself,” one user wrote on Reddit.
“Personally, I think it’s fair to claim that she actively created the situation(s) she claims to dislike, as she stated in ‘Miss Americana’ that she doesn’t like how crazy people can get when following her,” the user wrote. “She has gamified everything surrounding her existence yet clearly dislikes the consequences of that game.”
Meanwhile, fans will have to wait and see which other clues Swift drops leading up to the Oct. 3 release of “The Life of Showgirl.”