Taylor Swift tearfully retells moment she acquired masters, told Travis Kelce

In May, Taylor Swift made a long-awaited announcement. She acquired her master recordings – meaning she owned her catalog.

Swift had been in the process of buying back her masters, re-recording previous albums throughout her career. Private equity firm Shamrock Holdings acquired them in 2020 after a dispute with her former record label, which sparked the decision to re-record and release her albums.

This year, though, she finally got rights. It was an emotional moment for the pop star, and she was with her boyfriend Travis Kelce at the time. Even nearly three months later, she tearfully recalled those moments after she got the call from her mom – who, along with Swift’s brother, went to Shamrock and talked to management about it.

“They told them the whole story of all the times we’ve tried to buy it, all the times it’s fallen through, all the times we had gotten plans together and figured out something we thought was going to work and it didn’t at the last minute,” Swift said on Kelce’s New Heights podcast. “My mom calls me afterwards, she’s like, ‘Look, they were wonderful. They heard us out. We have no idea which way they’re going to go with this.’ I was like, ‘I get it, I get it. I haven’t gotten my hopes up about this in a decade.’ It was a couple months after the Super Bowl, we’re in Kansas City and I get a call from my mom and she’s like, ‘You got your music.’ … It’s literally been so long since this happened. Every time I talk about it.

“She was like, ‘You got your music.’ And I just, like, very dramatically hit the floor, for real. Just started bawling my eyes out. I’m just, like, weeping and kind of unable. I was just like, ‘Really? Really? What do you mean? What do you mean?’ I’m like, get yourself together, get your shit together. Just go tell Travis in a normal way. I knock on the door, he playing video games and I’m trying to say it in a normal way … and then just start absolutely heaving. Dropped, had no power in my legs to support myself.”

Travis Kelce: ‘I started crying, too’ when Taylor Swift got the call

As Taylor Swift reacted to the phone call from her mom, Travis Kelce had a similar response. A self-professed “crier,” he also got emotional. But he was thinking more about the work he saw her put since they started dating in 2023 – including the making of The Tortured Poets Department and the Eras Tour – and said it was only a matter of time before she got her masters.

“I started crying, too. You know I’m a crier,” Kelce said. “I was just so happy for you because I’ve seen how you make music. I’ve seen how you make these videos, seen the effort and the focus and the strategy behind what just one album. In Tortured Poets Department and in ‘Fortnight.’ And I was blown away that you had been doing this your entire life, and for your first six albums, you weren’t given the rights to all of that. I know what that that looked like and I know how much it burns you that you didn’t have that and you didn’t have your creation.

“I think doing it the right way, creating the fan base that you did the right way, and leading your life in a direction that you were eventually going to get it back, somehow, some way, because of you always doing things with the right intentions.”

Looking back, Swift still has a hard time fully grasping the fact she owns her masters. She sees it as a pinnacle event, and also credited those who helped with the re-recordings as she went through the process.

“This changed my life,” she said. “I can’t believe it, still. Every time I think about it, it’s like, I have to tell the short version to everyone because it is still like – this will affect the rest of my life.

“I think about this every day now, but instead of it being an intrusive thought that hurts me, it’s, ‘I can’t believe this happened. Like, how lucky am I? How grateful am I?'”