Over the last 15 months Taylor Swift has received hundreds of homemade friendship bracelets from fans, after singing about the 90s trend in her Midnights track 'You're On Your Own, Kid'. But what has the 34-year-old done with the accessories after her shows?
She has now donated them to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, where they will appear in the entrance to the Taylor Swift Education Center. The center has launched a new exhibition to tie in with the release of her April 19 album The Tortured Poet's Department, which also features the mother-of-pearl fingerboard she used during the 2013 and 2014 Red tour.
New artwork als commemorates the 2023 North American leg of Eras Tour shows in North America, featuring unique posters as well as hundreds of the bracelets which sit in a display case.
Other items include the Deering Boston B6 six-string acoustic-electric banjo Taylor played when she performed her song 'Mean' at the Grammy Awards in 2012, and the BCBG Max Azria silk handkerchief dress, accented with sequins, she wore to the 2006 ACM Awards.
The Taylor Swift Education Center opened in 2013 and "was made possible through a generous donation from Swift to the museum’s capital campaign, which doubled the size of the nonprofit cultural organization", the Museum said. "In 2023, the museum’s educational initiatives served more than 230,000 people through in-person and virtual programs — many of which originated in the Taylor Swift Education Center."
Taylor dropped her 11th studio album The Tortured Poets Department on April 19 – and shocked fans when she dropped another 15 tracks two hours later, completing the "anthology".
The first 16 tracks focused on the end of her romance with Joe Alwyn, and her whirlwind affair with Matty Healy in April 2023, as well as musing on her relationship with her fans, fame and society. The second set of tracks took aim at Kim Kardashian and her family, as well as singing about her new love Travis Kelce.
"It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album," Taylor shared on social media. "I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours."
The extra 15 songs included four of the bonus tracks that were supposed to only be available on limited edition CDs and vinyls as well as 11 extra songs, one of which was called 'thanK you aIMee'.
The capitalized words spelled out the name Kim and the lyrics hinted at Taylor's long-running feud with the reality star and businesswoman. "And maybe you've reframed it, and in your mind you never beat my spirit black and blue, I don't think you've changed much," she sings at one point.