Taylor Swift Sparked Idea for ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ During Convo with Travis Kelce — and Got Out of the Car to Record It

Taylor Swift revealed how she was inspired to make her song “Elizabeth Taylor.”

In a Pandora TikTok video shared on Wednesday, Oct. 8, the 14-time Grammy winner revealed she had an idea for the track during a conversation with fiancé Travis Kelce and got out of the car to record it. However, it all started with her parents.

“My parents sent me this clip of Elizabeth Taylor’s son saying something very flattering, that if there were one person he might compare to his mother in the modern day, in terms of persona and…the chaos around us, he said it would be me. I was so flattered by that. I just immediately started talking to Travis about it,” Swift, 35, said, seemingly referring to Taylor’s son Christopher Wilding.

She continued, “I was going on and on about Elizabeth Taylor, talking about all the things about her that I loved…how she kept challenging herself late into her life. I had to get out of the car.”

“I was like, ‘One sec, I have to get out of the car for a second,’ and I just sang this melody into my phone, got back in the car and…that’s what it’s like when it happens,” said Swift.

In a 2024 interview with The Guardian, Wilding, 70, said, “I can’t tell you how much I admire Taylor Swift. I’m now a Swifty. [Her Instagram post] at the end of that presidential debate was so f—— great. Huge props to her. That reminds me a little bit of the same spirit my mom had.”

When speaking with TMZ in August, Wilding praised Swift as a “rare, positive role model for young girls” and said he’s always “admired her philanthropy and courage to stand up for what she believes.”

Swift recently reflected on her admiration for Taylor and explained the meaning behind the song named after her.

“In this record, there’s a song called ‘Elizabeth Taylor,’ which is sort of my emotions and my issues with fame through the lens of cosplaying the life of Elizabeth Taylor, so you kind of meld the two experiences together,” the “Honey” artist said in an interview with Z100’s Elvis Duran Show.

Swift added, “She is always someone that I’ve looked up to as being this very glamorous, very beloved, but for some reason a polarizing figure, which I found myself in that place, too.”

The “Opalite” artist previously referenced Taylor in her 2017 track “…Ready For It?,” which features the lyric “He can be my jailer / Burton to this Taylor,” which references the legendary actress’s on-and-off-again relationship with Richard Burton.