The SNL Moment That Changed Taylor Swift's Career

August 27, 2024

Highlights

Taylor Swift has a history of pitching her own ideas to Saturday Night Live (SNL) and impressing the team with her talent and creativity.
In 2009, at just 19 years old, Swift wrote and performed her own song for the opening monologue when she hosted SNL, showcasing her talent and confidence.
In 2021, Swift agreed to appear in the SNL digital short "Three Sad Virgins" and even pitched additional jokes, showing her willingness to collaborate and embrace humor.

In 2021, Taylor Swift was invited to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. During the show's preparation, Swift was also asked to appear in a Please Don't Destroy digital short titled "Three Sad Virgins." Swift not only agreed to appear in the short, but she even pitched some of her own jokes.

Such a move would be expected of a pop star at Swift's level. However, this wouldn't be the first time Swift pitched her own ideas to the SNL team. In fact, Swift first pitched an idea to SNL as her star was rising.

In 2009, Swift hosted SNL at just 19 years old. SNL alum Seth Meyers would later reveal to Howard Stern how Swift wrote her own song for the opening monologue and pitched it to creator Lorne Michaels.

Needless to say, the move impressed Meyers and the song was featured in the show.

Taylor Swift Got Huge Praise After She Presented Her Opening Monologue Song On SNL

In January 2009, Swift appeared on Saturday Night Live for the first time. Although the singer was on the verge of becoming a huge star, she only appeared in one skit. Her main role that night was that of musical guest.

In November of that year, Swift appeared on the show again, this time as the host. Her hosting duties are even more impressive when you consider that Swift herself was only 19 at the time. During her opening monologue, Swift sang a song referencing many of the things people have said about her.

In the song, Swift mentioned writing songs about those who have wronged her, breaking up with Joe Jonas, rumors of her dating Taylor Lautner, and her infamous run-in with Kanye West at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Swift wrote the song herself and when Seth Meyers appeared on The Howard Stern Show, he reflected on the moment the singer presented the song behind-the-scenes.

"It really speaks to what a force of nature she is and the depths of her talent," Meyers said. "Here's a 19-year-old who nobody is really helping out; nobody gave her a manual of how to do that show. And yet, she came to us and said, 'I wrote a song for the opening monologue.' So we brought Taylor into Lorne [Michaels, SNL creator]'s office, and she sings this song which is not only a beautiful song by a beautiful singer, it's a perfect SNL monologue. Fully formed."

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To say that Meyers was impressed with Swift would be an understatement.

"To this day, I've never had a moment like that where someone brings you a fully gift-wrapped present and it's exactly what you need it to be," he said. "When she finished I should've said, 'Now Taylor, just for you, I want to look at you and read what we had written for you just so you know how much f****** worse it was. Not only is your song great, but you cannot even begin to imagine how s***** what we were doing for you is compared to how great what you did for yourself is."

Taylor Pulled Off A Surprise Cameo On 'Saturday Night Live' With Travis Kelce

In 2023, Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce made surprise cameo appearances on the Season 49 premiere episode of SNL. According to Variety, this was a surprise to not just the audience, but even to the SNL crew themselves.

An article published in the outlet claims that the production crew at SNL received word Swift and Kelce wanted to stop by the show minutes before it was set to begin.

Kelce was brought on to appear in the night's cold open, which was a parody of Fox NFL Sunday. The skit poked fun at the NFL's current fascination with Swift and her relationship to Kelce. Anchor Curt Menefee was played by Kenan Thompson. In the skit, Curt became increasingly frustrated with co-anchors Terry Bradshaw (Molly Kearney), Howie Long (Mikey Day), Michael Strahan (Devon Walker) and Jimmy Johnson (James Austin Johnson) as they rave about Swift.

When Curt refers to "Bad Blood," the co-anchors begin singing the song by Swift. This is when he has had enough.

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"You know what, I’m done. When we get back, we’re going to speak to someone who actually wants to talk football," he said before the camera flipped to Kelce.

Kelce didn't say anything during his cameo, because there was no time to script anything out. Swift appeared later in the show to introduce Ice Spice, the night's musical guest. This was also reportedly set up on the spot.

Please Don't Destroy Were Shocked When Taylor Agreed To Appear In Their 'SNL' Skit

As it turns out, Swift's 2009 monologue song wasn't the first time she was confident enough to pitch something to the folks at SNL. She once again offered her input in 2021 when she appeared on the show as the night's musical guest.

Swift appeared in an SNL digital short titled "Three Sad Virgins." The short was the brainchild of John Higgins, Martin Herlihy and Ben Marshall of Please Don't Destroy. The men had picked up where The Lonely Island left off and this was one of many shorts they created for the series.

While appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the Please Don't Destroy members reflected on getting Swift's approval to appear in the skit.

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"We didn’t think that she would do it," Higgins said. "[SNL writer] Dan Bulla, who wrote it with us, said, ‘We should have Taylor Swift do it’… and we were like, ‘yeah, obviously!'” So, they pitched it to her — including mentioning the name of the bit and how it would consist of her and Davidson roasting them — and she was immediately like, “‘Yes!’ and was like, ‘I get that about you guys.'"

Marshall even said that Swift pitched more jokes making fun of them, leading people to stop them on the street in real life and shout, "‘Hey, sad virgin!'" This is something Marshall said isn't even true, because "we're not sad."

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