Seth Meyers Admitted Writing a “Sh*tty” Monologue For Taylor Swift’s First Ever SNL Show
Taylor Swift is one of the biggest stars in the music industry right now. She started her journey when she was only 14 and achieved her billionaire status at the age of 33. Her Eras Tour has broken all records as the highest-grossing concert film of all time. Recently, with Spotify wrapped, millions of people had Taylor Swift as their top artist, making her the top global artist on Spotify in 2023.
Her albums Red, Reputation, Folklore, Evermore, Speak Now, 1989, and many more live in the heads of the fans rent-free. However, during the early days of Taylor Swift, she made her mark with her first ever SNL monologue, which was hilarious as well as heartfelt, to say the least. Recently, Howard Stern interviewed SNL alumn Seth Meyers and confronted him about Taylor Swift getting no guide for her first monologue on SNL at only 19. Quite apologetically, Seth Meyers admitted writing a sh*tty monologue for her back then.
Seth Meyers admits to feeling guilty about not guiding Taylor Swift for her first-ever monologue on SNL
Howard Stern told Seth Meyers on The Howard Stern Show that a clip circulating across the internet where Taylor Swift says that she got no guidance for her first SNL monologue when she was only 19 and it has been driving him “nuts:”
“You know the clip that’s driving me nuts — Taylor Swift saying ‘When I was on Saturday Night Live, and I got to host…’ And I don’t know, she was a kid. She was like 19 years old. She goes, ‘No one came to me and gave me any advice.’ That’s a problem.”
He even said how many “people think you’re supposed to know what to do when you’re hosting Saturday Night Live,” but in reality, it is a “tremendous task.” Meyers agrees with him and calls the pressure of hosting SNL “insane.” Meyers went on to say that:
“If you asked me what it was like to host, I would tell you today — and I worked there longer than almost anybody — I was like, Howard, no one tells you anything. Even I, who had worked there, couldn’t believe how it works.”
He said he felt “retroactively felt so guilty” for treating the guests the way he did, including Taylor Swift. Meyers went on to praise Swift for being a “force of nature” at such a young age.
“[It] speaks to what a force of nature she is and the depths of her talent. Here’s a 19-year-old, who again 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.'”
Seth Meyers continued to shower praise on Taylor Swift’s caliber by saying:
“So we brought Taylor into Lorne [Michael, series 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.”
He continued:
“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 continued. He went on to express his regret for how he reacted to Swift’s script. “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.'”
He then went on to address Swift directly and say:
“Not only is your song great, but you cannot even begin to imagine how s—ty what we were doing for you is compared to how great what you did for yourself is.”
In her opening monologue, Taylor Swift wrote a song that joked about people’s obsession with her wearing “glitter and sparkly dresses” and her always making “songs about douchebags that cheat on me.” She took a subtle jab at her recent ex, Joe Jonas, and sang:
“You might think I’d bring up Joe, that guy that broke up with me on the phone, but I’m not going to mention that in my monologue. Hey Joe, I’m doing well.”
It was truly a hilarious monologue and foreshadowed how far the star would continue to rise. The Anti-Hero singer did a truly phenomenal job at such a young age.
Taylor Swift will earn over $100 million from Spotify this year
Spotify wrapped this year is the year of the Swifties. Taylor Swift topped the charts of millions of users this year. She was named Spotify‘s top-streamed artist of 2023, leaving behind artists like Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, and Drake. It was well deserved and did not really come as a surprise considering the success of Midnights as well as two Taylor Swift re-recording albums this year: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
According to Billboard‘s royalty calculator, Swift’s 26.1 billion streams this year would amount to roughly $97 million in royalties. However, since the year is not over, the number is expected to swell even more, making her royalties $101 million from Spotify alone. In terms of publishing revenue, she is expected to earn approximately $131 million this year.
Taylor Swift’s songs are available to stream across many music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.
