Taylor Swift celebrated her huge career milestone on a girls’ night out with BFF Selena Gomez in New York City.
The longtime friends dined together at the swanky Monkey Bar in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday, May 31, while Taylor’s boyfriend Travis Kelce was in Kansas City for the annual Big Slick charity live show benefiting pediatric cancer research, according to pictures obtained by Deuxmoi.
The Monkey Bar is connected to the historic Hotel Elysée, and originally opened in the 1930s as a piano bar for ritzy guests. The eatery got its name from a hand-painted wraparound mural of monkeys by caricaturist Charlie Vella in the 1950s.
Swift, 35, had a lot to celebrate with Gomez, 32, since she announced on Friday, May 30, that she’d purchased the rights to her master recordings. For the past several years, Swift has spent considerable effort re-recording her first six albums because she didn’t own the original recorded versions.
Swift’s masters became a point of contention when music impresario Scooter Braun purchased her former record label Big Machine Records in 2019, thus giving him control of the six albums she recorded for the label. A highly-publicized feud between Swift and Braun developed before Braun eventually sold off her master recordings to Shamrock Capital for a reported $300 million in 2020.
On Friday, Swift stunned fans by announcing in an open letter that she’d reached an unexpected agreement with Shamrock to gain control of her masters.
“I’m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent, but right now my mind is just a slideshow. As a flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away for a chance to get to tell you this news,” she wrote.
“I almost stopped thinking it could happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now.”
Swift thanked her loyal Swifties for supporting her through her Eras Tour, which she said helped her make a deal for her masters.
“I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening,” Swift revealed. “I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.”
Swift was supported by many of her famous friends and fans following the announcement, including her boyfriend Kelce and close pal Gomez.
“Yes you did that Tay! So proud,” Gomez replied via Instagram.
Perhaps nobody was more excited than Swift super-fan Flavor Flav, who has even dubbed himself the “King Swiftie.”
“Congratulations to Taylor Swift @taylorswift13,” Flavor Flav wrote via X. “May you have peace and happiness and continue to gain more of that. This community is so happy for you,!!! ????????????????????✨????????????.”
Even Swift’s one-time nemesis Braun offered her congratulations in a statement to Us Weekly on Friday, saying, “I am happy for her.”
In addition to the momentous news about her masters, Swift also offered a candid update on the status of the rerecorded version of 2017’s Grammy Award-nominated album Reputation.
“Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it,” Swift wrote in her letter to fans. “The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief.”
Swift continued, “To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music or photos or videos. So, I kept putting it off. There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for unreleased vault tracks from that album to hatch.”
