Taylor Swift’s podcast interview with boyfriend Jason Kelce crashed the internet as figures soared past Donald Trump’s highly rated appearance with Joe Rogan last year.
On Wednesday, 1.3 million were watching live during the first hour of the New Heights podcast on YouTube in figures seen by the Daily Beast and confirmed by Swift’s representatives.
That almost doubled the 800,000 people watching Trump’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in its first hour last October, CNN reported Wednesday night, citing CNN data analyst Harry Enten.
CNN host Kate Bolduan said the podcast is “already on track to become one of the most watched podcasts of all time."
The two-hour chat on the New Heights football podcast was so popular that Swift’s fans crashed YouTube at the 1 hour, 44 minute mark, causing chaos in the comments section.
“Shoutout all the 92%ers and Swifties for actually helping us break the internet,” the New Heights X account said afterwards. The Kelce brothers call fans of the podcast “92 percenters” in reference to the success rate of a quarterback sneak.
Co-host Jason Kelce said on X, “1.3 million views is the epitome of numerology,” a reference to Swift discussing her love of the number 13 in the podcast.
According to Rolling Stone, New Heights’ YouTube channel soared in subscriber numbers, from 2.85 million to what is at time of publishing 2.94 million.
Joe Rogan’s Trump episode was watched 26 million times on YouTube in its first 24 hours. The most-watched Rogan episode of all time is Elon Musk’s 2018 appearance, which has had 69 million You Tube views. Trump’s episode has had 59 million views.
At time of publication, Swift’s New Heights episode had over 6 million views five hours after dropping on YouTube.
The Joe Rogan Experience was No.1 on YouTube’s podcast chart last week. New Heights was not in the Top 100, however it has been on hiatus until the Swift episode dropped.
The most popular New Heights episode featured Jason Kelce’s wife Kylie. Released in 2023, it has had 8.6 million views on YouTube.
Swift’s appearance on New Heights is a full-circle moment for the superstar couple. Travis Kelce first mentioned Swift on the podcast in July 2023, saying he had tried to give the singer a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it, but was unable to met her at a concert.
The musician, who has never done an interview with a boyfriend before, spoke about how instrumental hearing Kelce talking about how he wanted to meet her on the podcast was in their relationship.
“This kind of felt more like I was in an ’80s John Hughes movie,” Swift said. “He was just like standing outside of my window with a boom box just being like, ‘I want to date you. Do you want to go on a date with me? I made you a friendship bracelet. Do you want to date me?’”
She continued, “This is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.”
Kelce added, “And I was sitting there at the Eras tour listening to every single one of those songs, like, I know what she wants me to do!”
The footballer added, “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” while Swift said her boyfriend is “a vibe booster in everyone’s life that he’s in. He’s like a human exclamation point.”
Swift also used the podcast to confirm the Oct. 3 release of her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, which will feature Sabrina Carpenter on the title track.
Unlike previous Swift albums, she confirmed there will be no extra songs, with all 12 tracks created in Sweden with Max Martin and Shellback, the team who worked on songs including “Style,” “Shake It Off,” and “Blank Space.”
Trump has been critical of the pop star ever since she endorsed Kamala Harris as president. As recently as May, Trump said the 35-year-old was “no longer hot” after saying in September that he hated her.
In a Truth Social post in February, Trump posted a side-by-side video comparison of crowd reactions he and Swift received from the Super Bowl. The pop star was notably booed as a camera panned to her on the stadium’s jumbotron.
During an Eagles visit to the White House in April, he referenced the Super Bowl incident again. “I watched in person,” Trump recalled of the Super Bowl. “I was there along with Taylor Swift, how did that work out?”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
