At the 2022 American Music Awards this evening the red carpet felt, for lack of a better word, empty. With the likes of Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Adele and Beyoncé all nominated for awards this year our favourite A-lister were nowhere to be seen. At least that’s what we thought. As a woman of the people (read: Ticketmaster debacle), Swift made a surprise appearance at the annual event to accept the award for Favourite Pop Album for Red (Taylor’s Version).
The singer stepped onto the stage, much to the delight of fans, wearing a gold plunging jumpsuit covered in tiny rhinestones. The ’70s-esque look was paired with a head of voluminous curls, a sweeping side fringe and a red lip. Signature Taylor.
“This album is a re-recorded album and I cannot tell you how much my re-recorded albums mean to me, but I never expected or assumed that they would mean anything to you,” she said in her acceptance speech. Out of six nominations she won three awards.
We really should have expected a brief appearance from Swift, after all she loves a surprise. At the VMAs earlier this years she made a surprise announcement, revealing she was releasing her new album Midnights. The chart-topping album was followed by news of her global Eras tour which will begin in 2023 from North America.
The tour was met with an overwhelming response, and later controversy, when Ticketmaster cancelled general public sales after “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems” from pre sales meant there was “insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.” 2.4 million people were able to secure tickets however Ticketmaster is being accused of failing to prevent bots from snagging large quantities of tickets. The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating.
Swift responded to the controversy on Instagram stories last week. She wrote, in part, “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and they assured us they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”
