If you’ve listened to Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album “The Life of a Showgirl,” which officially dropped on October 3, you know that the “Fearless” singer-songwriter is … exploring new territory, so to speak. After years of relatively buttoned-up love songs, Swift, newly engaged to NFL star and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, is letting her freak flag fly, so to speak, with songs like “Wood” (an ode to Kelce’s, uh, manhood) and even the apparent diss track “Actually Romantic,” where she gets a “rise” out of a peer talking about her behind her back. With all that said, it’s not entirely surprising that a steamy, sexy Amazon Prime Video romp caught Swift’s attention, even amidst her recent album rollout.
During an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” to talk about “The Life of a Showgirl,” Swift, a noted consumer of pop culture of all kinds, revealed that she’s found time in her presumably insane schedule to check out “The Girlfriend,” a new Prime Video series that stars Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke (“House of the Dragon”) as warring women, with Wright as Laura Sanderson — mother of Laurie Davidson’s Daniel Sanderson — and Cooke as Cherry Laine, Daniel’s new girlfriend who puts Laura immediately on edge. So what is “The Girlfriend” about, and why would an artist like Swift, known for music that contains big yet grounded feelings, love it so much?
The Girlfriend is dramatic, over-the-top, and really fun — and it makes sense that Taylor Swift likes it
If you’re a fan of Taylor Swift’s music, you know that she can skew a little dramatic, which is why fans love her as much as they do. Between power ballads like “All Too Well” — which she expanded to a glorious, aching 10 minute version when she released “her” version of “Red” in 2021 before ultimately reclaiming her masters — and over-the-top rants like “Look What You Made Me Do,” Swift is no stranger to a giant and probably out-of-control emotion or feeling, and when it comes to high-octane drama and camp, “The Girlfriend” more than delivers.
Based on a novel of the same name by Michelle Francis, “The Girlfriend” tells the viewer immediately that Laura Sanderson never likes her son Daniel’s paramours, and when he informs her that things are relatively serious with Cherry Laine, Laura’s husband and Daniel’s father Howard (Waleed Zuaiter) is immediately supportive, but Laura is on edge. After she discovers Cherry and Daniel in a series of compromising positions and learns that Cherry might be lying about certain parts of her backstory, Laura grows more and more suspicious and determined to keep the two young lovers apart; to say that Laura goes to drastic and even horrifying lengths to do so is a massive understatement.
Wright and Cooke really elevate the material of “The Girlfriend” — a series that might have fallen apart without two such capable actors at the helm — and even when the show feels abjectly absurd, it’s still incredibly fun to watch. Swift, for her part, knows this and made sure to recommend it on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” — so what else did the Eras Tour superstar say she’s really loved lately?
What other pop culture has megastar Taylor Swift been enjoying lately?
Besides “The Girlfriend,” Taylor Swift told Jimmy Fallon that she was absolutely blown away by two other major pop culture hits recently. First was Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterful action comedy “One Battle After Another,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, and Sean Penn and has already been hailed as one of the very best films of 2025 by critics and audiences alike. “Chase Infiniti and Teyana Taylor — how are they going to split the Oscar in half?” Swift mused about the on-screen daughter and mother, laughing. “Benicio was so funny, Leo was hilarious,” she continued before, unsurprisingly, honing in on the film’s absolutely astounding music. “The fact that when you hear that theme each time, it makes you feel something different. We are so lucky to be alive at the same time as Paul Thomas Anderson,” the “Anti-Hero” singer (and, hopefully, future feature film director) gushed.
When it comes to the small screen, Swift has also mentioned the new Peacock original series “The Paper” twice — though maybe the first time doesn’t count if you consider that she said how much she loves the spin-off of “The Office” while on a panel with its star Domhnall Gleeson during a taping of “The Graham Norton Show.” Still, she did also bring up the series to Jimmy Fallon, so maybe she wasn’t just saying that because she was in Gleeson’s presence … and Swift is right, because “The Paper” is a lot of fun. Set in the same general universe as “The Office,” this new series follows a group of employees, led by Gleeson’s Ned Sampson, as they try to turn a failing periodical called the Toledo Truth Teller into a big deal again.
Unsurprisingly, Swift, one of the most well-regarded and lauded performers of her time, has good taste in pop culture. You can stream “The Girlfriend” on Amazon Prime Video, check out “The Paper” on Peacock, and go see “One Battle After Another” in theaters now.