Taylor Swift Details What Inspired Collaboration With Ice Spice: 'I Was Absolutely Blown Away'

On the first night of her MetLife Stadium shows for the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift treated fans to a big surprise. She brought out Ice Spice to the stage and debuted the music video for their collaborative new version of Midnights' "Karma."

"This is a moment in the show that has not been in the show, because it's the first time we're doing something like this. So, last night around midnight, I had a new deluxe version of my album out called Midnights (The Til Dawn Edition). Something that I really want to talk about is the fact that there's an amazing artist who did a feature on 'Karma'," said Swift.

She continued, "I want to explain how this came out because it felt like karma, or like fate or something. Basically, at the very beginning of the year when I was just starting to train for this tour—I was fully in it—I got reached out to by Ice Spice. She reached out and she just said, 'You know, if you ever want to collab, I would love to' and what she didn't know at the time was that when I was training for the tour, I was listening to pretty much exclusively her music every single day, all day, getting in the zone to tour because of her."

The pop star added, "I said, 'Absolutely, when can we do it?' When we went in the studio, I just not only fell in love with her but decided she's the entire future. She is so…I've been around so many artists that are starting out but I've never been around someone who is that prepared and curious and focused on what she wants. So I was absolutely blown away."

After singing Spice's praises, Swift told fans that the pair made a music video for the track but "no one's seen it"—and the lucky crowd in attendance would be the first ones to watch, turning the concert into a world premiere.

Swift's comments on how the collaboration came about coincide with accusations that she was doing damage control, using Spice to protect her image after rumored boyfriend Matty Healy made inappropriate comments about the 23-year-old rapper.

Earlier in the year, the 1975 frontman appeared on The Adam Friedland Show, where the musician joined the podcast's co-hosts Adam Friedland and Nick Mullen in making derogatory comments about Spice's body and joked about her ethnicity. The episode has since been deleted from Spotify and Apple Music.

After catching flack for his comments, Healy gave a half-apology during a performance in Auckland, New Zealand, saying, "I just feel a bit bad, and I'm kind of a bit sorry if I've offended you. Ice Spice, I'm sorry. It's not because I'm annoyed that me joking got misconstrued. It's because I don't want Ice Spice to think I'm a d--k. I love you, Ice Spice. I'm so sorry."