Taylor Swift drops major announcement after leaving fans clues for weeks

Taylor Swift debuted a whole new look as she announced to her fans that she would be releasing her latest single, “Patient Zero”, on Friday, in what will be her first music drop since her wedding to Travis Kelce.

The superstar took to Instagram to announce the special news with a photo of herself leaning against a cement wall, dressed in a black halter-neck look. 

She paired the outfit with smokey eyeliner and a dark pink lip, and wore her blonde locks down past her shoulders.

“I’ve been impatiently waiting to tell you that my brand new single, ‘Patient Zero’, will be out on September 25 (!!!!!!!!!!!!) and it’s available to pre-order now on my website for 24 hours,” she wrote in the caption, quickly garnering over five million likes in as many hours.

© Billboard via Getty Images

Fans began to speculate that Taylor had a major announcement up her sleeve when the letter “O” in all of her social media bios and in the lyrics to several Life of a Showgirl tracks on Spotify were switched out for the number “0”.

Her most recent music drop came in early June, when she released the single “I Knew It, I Knew You” for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack. She then tied the knot with Travis in New York City on July 3, making this her first release since her nuptials.

Taylor’s cryptic clues

The news comes just over a week after the “Cruel Summer” singer made a surprise cameo in a skit at the Emmys in support of her close friend, Mariska Hargitay.

Taylor appeared in the Law & Order: SVU skit as a rookie detective while the team were trying to discover whether she would attend the Emmy Awards or not.

“Now, in order to crack a Swiftie case, you got to think like a Swiftie because the Swifties think that everything is a clue to what she’ll do next,” Mariska said, referring to the blonde beauty’s tradition of leaving Easter eggs about her upcoming projects for fans to puzzle out.

Taylor then chimed in: “I think what we’re going to be looking for is hiding in plain sight,” and turned to the camera to utter a series of direct clues to her fans. “Saccharide, Aries, from the vineyard, north or south.” When Taylor finished, Mariska asked, “What did you just say?” before she replied, “I didn’t say anything.” 

Travis’ steadfast support

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When the sketch aired, the A-lister was busy supporting her new husband, Travis, at his first game of the season with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Travis later shared on his podcast, New Heights, that he thought the Emmys skit was “very good”, before adding: “There’s not much she can’t do.”

© Instagram

The NFL star then joked that Taylor looked “kinda hot with a gun on her waist”, and said: “Now I know what to get her for Christmas.” The couple tied the knot in front of 1,000 of their family and friends inside Madison Square Garden on July 3, in a ceremony that Mariska called “spectacular”.

“I’m still floating from that wedding. It was so spectacular and so intimate, I have to say,” she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “I have to say, I am blown away, because when there’s a wedding with that many guests, you think, like, ‘Oh, okay, it’s gonna be that.’ And it just wasn’t.”