Taylor Swift will be coming full circle when she visits The Tonight Show next week, reuniting with a celebrity she idolized at the very start of her career.
Swift is set to be Jimmy Fallon’s lead-off guest on Monday, Oct. 6. The second seat of the night will go to actress Keri Russell—someone Swift has openly adored for nearly two decades.
Russell first won over Swift long before they would ever share a greenroom. The proof lies in a blog post Swift penned back in January 2008.
In a MySpace post titled “Keri Russell is the coolest celebrity ever,” Swift recounted meeting the Felicity and Waitress star at a corporate party where Swift had been hired to perform. “I’ve always been obsessed with her because she rocks the curly hair, and was AMAZING in The Waitress [sic] and Felicity,” Swift wrote.
“When we met her, she was SO incredibly cool… She was really genuine, and funny,” Swift added. She recalled how Russell even shared her full haircare routine with Swift’s banjo player, Ben Clark, whose wife had been curious. “This is why she’s awesome: She gets out a piece of paper, and writes down EXACTLY what products she uses, what blow dryers she uses, and exactly what she does to make her hair straight or curly.”
“It seems simple,” Swift concluded, “but [Russell] had so many people who wanted to talk to her, and still she took the time to do that for Ben. I just think it’s so awesome when cool people don’t know they’re cool. Love her!”
For her part, Russell has acknowledged Swift as well. In a Variety interview last year, she joked that she was “obsessed” with the singer. At the time, Russell was starring in a stage reading of Dear Mr. Thomas, a play about Dylan Thomas—the poet Swift had recently brought into the spotlight with a reference on her album The Tortured Poets Department.
Russell isn’t the only connection on Monday’s Tonight Show. The musical guest is The Format, the indie band led by Nate Ruess. Ruess later co-founded fun. with Jack Antonoff, who went on to become Swift’s most trusted producer over the last decade. Fans were surprised when Antonoff was not involved in Swift’s newly announced record, The Life of a Showgirl. While rumors of a rift have circulated online, nothing has been substantiated.
Swift’s interview comes after Fallon teased her upcoming appearance in an Easter egg-filled video late last week. It will mark her first sit-down with the host since 2022.
