Late Night with Seth Meyers may be calling Taylor Swift’s Wednesday visit a “TAY/kover,” but Jimmy Fallon may have beaten his lead-out to the punch, delivering a full 50 minutes with the pop superstar Monday night.
If viewers tuning in weren’t already aware of Fallon’s booking coup Monday, they were tipped off from the show’s opening seconds when a shimmering orange The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon logo signaled that Swift would be looming large over the night’s proceedings. That’s precisely what happened in the musician’s first appearance on a U.S. late-night talk show since 2022.
“The mother of all guests, Taylor Swift, is here tonight,” Fallon said at the top of his monologue. “I just want to quickly thank all the Swifties around the world watching us tonight. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for all your support.”
Several more jokes about Swift’s album release followed, all of which made sure to celebrate the pop superstar rather than poke fun. But when Fallon started to move on to other news for the monologue, The Roots’ Tariq Trotter and Questlove interrupted the host.
“We don’t want to hear any more jokes tonight, just do them tomorrow,” Questlove told Fallon. (Minutes earlier, Questlove had replaced his usual show-opening shout-out of the episode number with the words, “She’s here!”)
“We love you, but we’re here for her,” Trotter added. “Just stop wasting time and bring her out already!”
With that, Fallon broke from The Tonight Show’s usual format. Forgoing a desk piece and a commercial break, he went right to his desk and introduced “the biggest pop star on the planet,” beginning his interview with Swift less than five minutes into the show. Swift talked The Life of a Showgirl, dished on her recent engagement to Travis Kelce, and played a semi-game where she squashed various rumors before Fallon finally tossed to the show’s first break some 17 minutes in.
The Tonight Show gave Swift two more dedicated segments after that: another six minutes of interview and light game-playing at the desk, followed by a nearly eight-minute segment in which Fallon and Swift discussed specific tracks from The Life of a Showgirl on a specially crafted set.
Despite giving Swift more dedicated airtime than any other guest in recent memory, there was more content The Tonight Show couldn’t fit into the broadcast. As aired, Fallon spoke with Swift for approximately 25 minutes, but the duo’s conversation time extended past 50 minutes in web-only extended cuts, which were promoted at the end of each segment.
Even when the show bid Swift adieu over 30 minutes into the night, the musician remained a topic of conversation. Fallon’s first order of business for his second guest, Keri Russell, was highlighting her connection to Taylor Swift — a throwback to an obscure moment early in Swift’s career, as LateNighter reported last week.
Even the episode’s actual musical guest, The Format, had their own unspoken connection to Swift. Frontman Nate Ruess is a former collaborator of Jack Antonoff, Swift’s frequent collaborator until she shook things up on this new record.
With The Tonight Show delivering so much Swift Monday night, there’s no telling what a formally billed “TAY/kover” will entail when she visits Late Night on Wednesday. The singer is scheduled to tape her appearance tomorrow afternoon, for broadcast later that night.
