Taylor Swift’s latest The Life of a Showgirl album cover has fans searching for Easter eggs.
“A showgirl knows to save some of her best tricks for the grand finale,” Swift, 35, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, September 24. “The Life of a Showgirl: The Crowd is Your King Edition on Summertime Spritz Pink Shimmer Vinyl is available to pre-order now exclusively at @target while supplies last.”
In one of the images, Swift wore a rose-colored corset with a feathered headpiece as she posed in a salon with blush wallpaper and framed images from her Life of a Showgirl photo shoot.
In one of the framed pics, fans noticed that Swift stood in a well-lit corridor below a collage of two “exit” signs. Taking to social media, devoted Swifties theorized the LED sign was a clue to the album.
“This is the THIRD ‘EXIT’ reference we got,” one fan wrote via X, referring to a September 20 video of Swift on set of her Showgirl cardigan photo shoot in front of a doorway that had a similar lit-up sign.
Others pointed out that Swift previously posted a TikTok video in October 2024 with her pet cat Olivia ahead of her Eras Tour concert in Miami, where an “exit” poster was visible in the background.
Seeing a plethora of exit signs subsequently had fans trying to search for a deeper meaning.
“What if the ‘Karma’ door is an exit door?” one fan asked.
Swift had left her final December 2024 Eras Tour concert in Vancouver through an orange door at the back of the stage.
“I would leave the stage every night going down the elevator lift. That’s how every single Eras show ended except for one — except for the last one,” she said on fiancé Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast last month. “I exited through an orange door, [which] was actually an Easter egg. The reason why I chose to exit that way is because I wanted to give a subliminal hint to the fans that I may be leaving the Eras Tour era, I was also entering a new era.”
Swift then announced that her next album, her 12th, would be available starting Friday, October 3. The Life of a Showgirl was written while Swift was on the European leg of Eras, chronicling her experience behind the scenes.
Fans now believe that the exit signs connect to the premise of the album.
“There’s a saying in the industry called exit stage left and if you notice as you’re looking at her, it’s pointing to the right, but to her it’s her left,” another fan wrote via X. “There’s an actual saying that goes far back in show business that states exit stage is a way of exiting the stage in an orderly manner.”
A separate X user posited that the exit signs were “just a nod” to the album’s theme “being behind the curtain” when she leaves a concert venue.
A third added, “I swear, it’s soooo obvious it’s [because] it’s all BEHIND THE SCENES of a theatre/stadium, where it’s full of exits.”
The Life of a Showgirl will be released Friday, October 3.
