Taylor Swift’s 60+ Tour Guests Ranked, From Idina Menzel to Mick Jagger
Call it chronic duet-itis. As the hostest with the mostest guests, Taylor Swift has surely a record for the highest number of famous-name cameos in a single tour. Between the time her American tour began in May and its conclusion Sunday night, she introduced more than 60 separate guest slots, the majority of which involved Swift and her band learning someone else’s song just for a night.
As collaborations go, she went out with a bang Sunday. Dressing up as Frozen’s roly-poly snowman, Olaf (and having her dancers dress as reindeer), seemed like just a Halloween goof, until it turned out that was the setup for a serious punchline, in the form of Idina Menzel joining her to sing “Let It Go.”
But how does Elsa stack up against Mary J. Blige? Mick Jagger against Steven Tyler? Lisa Kudrow against Matt LeBlanc? Alessia Cara versus Cara Delevingne? Did landing Fetty Wap trump The Weeknd? We catalogued every guest slot on Swift’s tour and ranked them, from least exciting to most exciting:
Martha Hunt and Gigi Hadid
Detroit, Michigan (May 30)
After foregoing cameos for the first two nights of her official 1989 tour, Swift got the guest game started in earnest on night three by bringing out two of her model friends to do the catwalk during “Style,” fulfilling the dreams of at least a fans for a long-awaited Catastrophe/Home Slice/Slay-Z reunion.
Matt LeBlanc, Chris Rock, and Sean O’Pry
Los Angeles, California (August 22)
Although they gamely walked the catwalk during “Style,” LeBlanc and Rock had that “I just brought my daughter to a show — I didn’t know I was going to be modeling” look in their eyes. O’Pry, one of the world’s top male models (and the star of the “Blank Space” video), surely could have brought a little more strut to his catwalking, but it’s hard when you’re trying to not out-sexy Matt LeBlanc.
MKTO
Foxboro, Massachusetts (July 25)
Song: “Classic”
Not hard to see why Swift likes the duo’s 2013 hit “Classic,” since lines like “I wanna thrill you like Michael/I wanna kiss you like Prince” invoke a time period somewhere around… 1989. Plus, there’s the line “You’re never going out of style.” Still, they were way out of their league sharing her stage.
Little Mix
Santa Clara, California (August 15)
Song: “Black Magic”
All the young English girls who happened to be in northern California must have been bowled over to see the reigning girl group from their homeland join Swift on stage. Everyone else might have been saying “Huh?,” since while “Black Magic” was a No. 1 smash in the UK this year for the X-Factor winners, it only made it to No. 67 in Great America. But if Simon Cowell manages to break them in the U.S. with their forthcoming November album, Swift will look one prescient Anglophile.
Fifth Harmony
Santa Clara, California (August 14)
Song: “Worth It”
Swift’s two-night stand in Santa Clara was really all about the X-Factor girl groups. But Fifth Harmony was probably more exciting than Little Mix for most Californians, since it was the American version of X-Factor that they came in third place on, and the song they performed with Swift made it to No. 4 this year.
Alessia Cara
Tampa, Florida (October 31)
Song: “Here”
On the very last night of her American tour, before Idina Menzel came out, Swift proved she’s a friend to newcomers as well as divas, giving a coveted slot to Cara, a 19-year-old Canadian who’s just barely cracked the top 20 with “Here.”
Dwyane Wade
Miami, Florida (October 27)
The Miami Heat star gave Swift an honorary NBA jersey with… well, you know what number was on it. Nice gesture, but the least he could have done was put a permanent banner on the wall of the American Airlines Arena like Kobe did for Swift a couple months earlier in L.A.
Russell Wilson and Ciara
Seattle, Washington (August 8)
Always nice to glimpse a royal couple in the flesh, but the audience wanted to hear Ciara sing, not just be arm candy for her Seahawks quarterback beau. Not that you would have been able to hear her over the Seattle ovation.
Nico & Vinz
Vancouver, Canada (August 1)
Song: “Am I Wrong”
The Norwegian duo reprised their year-old smash at a Canadian date, making for a severely northern theme.
Walk the Moon
Foxboro, Massachusetts (July 24)
Song: “Shut Up and Dance”
Why should this song be any less avoidable at a Swift show?
Lily Aldridge, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Candice Swanepole, Martha Hunt, Behati Prinsloo, and Uzo Aduba
East Rutherford, New Jersey (July 11)
Although Orange is the New Black star Aduba was merely joining the parade of eye candy during “Style” here, she made an actual singing appearance the following month in L.A.
Lena Dunham, Hailee Steinfeld, Gigi Hadid, and Lily Aldridge
East Rutherford, New Jersey (July 10)
Another “Bad Blood” reunion cluster with an odd woman —or odd “Girl” — out.
Martha Hunt, Kendall Jenner, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, and Serena Williams
London, England (June 27)
Models + sports. A theme develops…
U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and Heidi Klum
East Rutherford, New Jersey (July 10)
Models + sports, again. A theme coalesces!
Andreja Pejic and Lily Donaldson
Chicago, Illinois (July 19)
Swift welcomed a transgender model, Pejic, to the “Style” catwalk… a not altogether surprising development for a singer who did just give a serious nod to inclusiveness with her “boys and boys and girls and girls” line in “Welcome to New York.”
Serayah
Chicago, Illinois (July 18)
Song: “Style”
Unlike some of the other “Bad Blood” co-stars who came out to strut to “Style,” the Empire star actually tried her hand at singing the song.
Ellen DeGeneres
Los Angeles, California (August 24)
Who can turn the world on with her smile? Ellen can, which is good, because she didn’t have much else to do during her “Style” catwalk, and, for better or worse, even spared the audience her dancing.
Tove Lo
Atlanta, Georgia (October 24)
Song: “Talking Body”
Swift doesn’t usually sing songs as sexual as “Talking Body,” much less ones with the F-word, but something about Tove Lo makes her want to get physical, physical.
Rachel Platten
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (June 13)
Song: “Fight Song”
If she’s not going to have Katy Perry out to sing “Roar”(and she isn’t), “Fight Song” is a suitable substitute, even if the self-empowerment isn’t that powerful.
Andy Grammer
Chicago, Illinois (July 18)
Song: “Honey I’m Good”
Swift is not one to turn down a Song of the Summer candidate. Maybe she noticed that “Honey I’m Good” is a country song in everything but production style.
OMI
San Diego, California (August 29)
Song: “Cheerleader”
OMG! It’s OMI! ….said a lot of teenagers, and probably very few parents, about the flavor-of-the-moment Jamaican singer.
Joan Baez and Julia Roberts
Santa Clara, California (August 15)
How many times have we told you that Swift is the new Dylan? Well, let this be the first, then. And what could be more exciting than a historic Taylor/Joan duet? Unfortunately, all Baez did during “Style” was walk ‘n’ wave, alongside Roberts. We demand a rematch!
Echosmith
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (June 12)
and Columbus, Ohio (September 18)
Song: “Cool Kids”
Is there an echo in here? Swift must really think Echosmith’s Sydney Sierota is a cool kid, because the 19-year-old is one of only two singers to perform twice on the 1989 tour (the other being Ellie Goulding). Sierota joined Swift with her band in Philly and then returned all by herself in Columbus.
Mariska Hargitay and Cara Delevingne
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (June 12)
Honoring Hargitay was a nice touch, but it would have been far more memorable if Swift had brought out the other, furrier Olivia Benson, too. Some cameos are harder to procure than others.
Ryan Tedder
Los Angeles, California (August 21)
Song: “Counting Stars”
Tedder is too ubiquitous to get anyone’s heart racing, but he certainly deserves a place on her stage more than most, having co-written two tracks for 1989. It might’ve been more interesting if they’d dueted on one of those instead of a One Republic hit.
Leona Lewis
Nashville, Tennessee (September 26)
Song: “Bleeding Love”
The best Ryan Tedder song sung on a Taylor Swift stage this year was this eight-year-old golden oldie.
Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons
Detroit, Michigan (May 30)
Song: “Radioactive”
Hard to deny what remains arguably the most indelible alternative song of the ‘10s. It goes over even with just one Dragon.
Jason Derulo
Washington, D.C. (July 14)
“Want to Want Me”
The only performer to go shirtless while dueting with Swift. Shirtless and very, very sweaty. For that odd-couple photo op alone, we thank him.
Kelsea Ballerini
Nashville, Tennessee (September 25)
Song: “Love Me Like You Mean It”
Ballerini is the great hope for country fans who’d like to believe that freshmen women can still make it in the male-dominated format. So it made sense that Swift would honor someone following in her footsteps, even if we can think of so many Nashville women we wish she could’ve bumped up the list ahead of Ballerini.
Ellie Goulding
Arlington, Texas (October 17)
Song: “Love Me Like You Do”
Goulding had opened for Swift at a London stadium in June, and came back across the pond to sing a duet in Texas. They’re obviously buds: Goulding sang “Burn” with Swift at the close of her previous tour last year.
Charli XCX
Toronto, Canada (October 3)
Song: “Boom Clap”
No fault in our stars when these two are dropping the boom together. Charli XCX”s big-beat production style would’ve been right at home on 1989, even if her attitude’s a little rougher.
Sam Hunt
Chicago, Illinois (July 19)
Song: “Take Your Time”
Not a lot of these duets allowed for anything like romantic chemistry, but having Hunt sing his suave come-on to Swift while seated on a prop park bench upped the ante a little. Hunt faces the same charges Swift once did — that he’s a country singer who doesn’t remotely look or sound like one — so he’s already walking a very successful mile in her moccasins.
Selena Gomez
Los Angeles, California (August 16)
Song: “Good for You”
The sisterhood between Swift and Gomez appeared to have flowered anew after that divisive Bieber exited the picture, so it was a charge for L.A. to see Taylor with her bestie, even if Gomez isn’t a galvanizing live performer.
Avril Lavigne
San Diego, California (August 29)
Song: “Complicated”
Swift’s boyfriend, Calvin Harris, and Lavigne seemed to have gotten in a Twitter tiff a week prior to this show. But when Avril and Taylor joined up on stage for a 2002 song that could be said to prefigure Swift’s pop career in many ways, it all seemed very uncomplicated.
Nelly
St. Louis, Missouri (September 29)
Songs: “The Fix” and “Hot in Herre”
Nelly was one of only three performers to earn a two-song guest slot with Swift (the others being Keith Urban and Mary J. Blige). For “Hot in Herre,” opening act Haim came out to indulge in something they’re not otherwise known for: choreography.
The Band Perry
Indianapolis, Indiana (September 16)
Song: “If I Die Young”
Kimberly Perry is definitely following Swift’s career path: start out singing an acoustic country song, then turn into a rock star — even if she probably won’t officially jump genres the way Taylor did. They dueted on a sweet ballad that recalled both their pre-headbanging origins.
Ricky Martin
Miami, Florida (October 27)
Song: “Livin’ La Vida Loca”
Some cities had more geographically appropriate guests than others. Between Martin and Pitbull, the Miami show pretty much nailed it.
Pitbull
Miami, Florida (October 27)
Song: “Give Me Everything”
Pitbull’s first No. 1 probably eclipsed Ricky Martin’s first No. 1 in terms of excitement, the night they both shared a stage with Swift in Miami. If only Lindsay Lohan had been there to witness her name being taken in vain.
Little Big Town
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (June 6)
Song: “Pontoon”
Their more current smash, “Girl Crush,” might have been an even better choice, given the potential for Swift/Karen Fairchild girl-on-girl jealous sparks. Nonetheless, the thought of Swift celebrating motorboating — any kind of motorboating — was too good to resist.
Nick Jonas
East Rutherford, New Jersey (July 11)
Song: “Jealous”
Surely Swift picked Jonas for this task because their good vibes go back years, and because “Jealous” was a top 10 hit last year, not because she takes any perverse pleasure in Nick unexpectedly being The Successful Jonas Brother.
Kobe Bryant
Los Angeles, California (August 21)
As far as non-singing guests go, Bryant ranks highest, for what he brings to any Staples Center appearance, and for what he unveiled that night: a permanent banner celebrating Swift’s record 16 sellouts in the vast arena. With everything else on that circular upper wall devoted to sports, it’s nice to see music squeaking in there as holding a spot in our lives, too.
Steven Tyler
Nashville, Tennessee (September 25)
“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”
No matter what you think of Tyler’s attempt to become a country solo artist, he brings an electric charge wherever he goes. Too bad they settled on a ballad that’s still a point of contention among Aerosmith fans instead of something it would have been more fun to hear Swift sing, like about saddles or rabbits dying.
Ed Sheeran
Las Vegas, Nevada (May 15)
“Tenerife Sea”
Nothing unexpected about seeing Swift and Sheeran together, but his guest slot at her Vegas Rock in Rio festival set — which barely predated the official start of her U.S. tour — was the first time they’d performed together in America since he became a superstar in his own right.
Dierks Bentley
Kansas City, Missouri (September 21)
“Every Mile a Memory”
Country’s most reliable modern male star offered Swift the chance to do a more reflective ballad than some of the other pop barnburners she collaborated on over the year.
John Legend
Los Angeles, California (August 25)
“All of Me”
More balladic maturity, with Legend commandeering Swift’s piano as one of the few guests to also take an instrumental turn.
Keith Urban
Toronto, Canada (October 2)
“John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” and “Somebody Like You”
Two slots for Keith! Oh, the Urbanity! Maybe he wanted to do his new one and she wanted a crowd-pleasing oldie and this was the compromise, as with Mary J. Blige’s two-part appearance. Or maybe she feels a special rapport with Urban as somebody else who became an absolute country insider despite some distinctively outside traits.
Wiz Khalifa
Houston, Texas (September 9)
Song: “See You Again”
Earlier in the tour, Swift had tweeted about listening to the hip-hop ballad “See You Again” while “thinking about how much I’ll miss my cats.” Happily, she managed to make it through the duet without dissolving into a cascade of tears, and made a perfectly fine Charlie Puth substitute on the hook.
The Weeknd
East Rutherford, New Jersey (July 10)
Song: “Can’t Feel My Face”
Swift did not actually pet the Weeknd’s hair on stage, but in spite of her withholding on that visual effect, having her bring him out for another Song of the Summer was anything but numbing.
Allison Krauss
Nashville, Tennessee (September 25)
Song: “When You Say Nothing at All”
Swift’s one-time heroine, Shania Twain, pulled a left-field move years ago when she enlisted Krauss and her backup band for a rootsier TV special. Is it too much to hope, then, for a Swift & Union Station tour? Yes, it is, so fans of either will have to make do with audible snippets of their Nashville harmonizing.
Fetty Wap
Seattle, Washington (August 8)
“Trap Queen”
If you ever wanted to hear Taylor Swift participate in a song about smoking crack and pole dancing, this was your moment. Not that most of the girls who went predictably crazy over “Trap Queen” in Seattle were literalizing it quite that much.
Lorde
Washington, D.C. (July 13)
Song: “Royals”
Given their friendship, you would think we would have been the beneficiaries of a lot more Swift/Lorde duets a lot sooner. D.C. fans got to enjoy the spoils of the break in that logjam, and for a few minutes could pretend that both these superstars are commoners.
Alanis Morissette
Los Angeles, California (August 24)
Song: “You Oughta Know”
Before “Dear John,” before “The Story of Us,” before “I Knew You Were Trouble,” there was “You Oughta Know,” the mother of all excruciatingly confessional world-dominating pop breakup anthems. It went down very well in the theater known as Staples Center.
Uzo Aduba
Los Angeles, California (August 22)
Song: “White Horse”
Every other musical guest on the tour performed one of his or her own songs. The exception was Aduba — best known for Orange is the New Black, not her singing, up till now — who helped Swift acoustically revive a Fearless song that hasn’t been a regular part of her set list since 2010.
Beck and St. Vincent
Los Angeles, California (August 25)
Song: “Dreams”
It was trippy enough seeing indie king Beck collaborate with Swift, but trippier still was the guitar-only appearance by St. Vincent. It was the latter artist who may have required fewer phone calls, since she is reportedly the paramour of one of Swift’s BFFs, Cara Delevingne. “Dreams” comes from the latest Album of the Year Grammy winner, and 1989 is a front-runner for the next one, so Swift may have set some karma in motion with her Beck cover. It could hardly have been more exciting if Kanye walked out to interrupt both of them.
Miranda Lambert
Greensboro, North Carolina (October 21)
Song: “Little Red Wagon”
At last, the two most exciting things to happen to country music in the 21st century, on one stage. Lambert’s latest single, with its rockabilly rave-up flavor, could hardly stand at a more opposite end of the spectrum from Swift’s current musical direction, but the maverick spirit is clearly equal in both.
Idina Menzel
Tampa, Florida (October 31)
Song: “Let It Go”
For the closing night of the tour, Swift spent an entire number dressed up for Halloween as Frozen’s Olaf, before revealing that this gambit had a payoff: “Let It Go.” Naturally, Menzel had to shoulder the more demanding notes of the taxing ballad, but Swift not quite sharing Idina’s multi-octave belting range never bothered us anyway.
Lisa Kudrow, as Phoebe Buffay
Los Angeles, California (August 26)
Song: “Smelly Cat”
While Swift has willingly cast herself as the world’s most renowned cat lady, you would have guessed that she would never find a hit song about the species to cover. And in that case you would have forgotten “Smelly Cat,” Phoebe Buffay’s Friends anthem, which Kudrow came out in character to harmonize with Swift on. Kudrow stands as the only duet partner of the tour to offer the superstar a bit of on-stage correction: “I’m sorry — you have to really feel the lyrics.”
Justin Timberlake
Los Angeles, California (August 26)
Song: “Mirrors”
Timberlake is so used to handling the same-sized arenas that Swift plays that he took command of the stage — or extended ramp — as soon as he hit it, rather than ever looking to Swift for guidance the way most other guest performers did. If it didn’t result in the most amazing collaborative chemistry of the tour, it surely provoked the most deafening ovation.
Mary J. Blige
Los Angeles, California (August 22)
“Doubt” and “Family Affair”
Another rare two-fer. As Blige told Yahoo Music in an interview after the show, “I asked her if she could sing (‘Doubt’) with me, and she said yes. And then of course ‘Family Affair,’ she wanted me to perform that. And I said, ‘Just sing all the songs with me tonight—let’s just make it a duet night.’” If anyone ever looked at some of the younger performers on the tour and imagined Swift would be afraid to put herself alongside a recognized master, this extended bout with the post-Aretha Queen of Soul dispelled that notion.
Natalie Maines
Los Angeles, California (August 24)
“Goodbye Earl”
Before Swift, the Dixie Chicks brought girl-power to country in a way no one did before or has since, and surely paved the path for Swift’s empowered take on the genre. However latently violent the “Blank Space” video might’ve been, Swift has never gone so far as to murder anybody in a song. Maybe reviving “Goodbye Earl” with Maines will plant some ideas in her head.
Mick Jagger
Nashville, Tennessee (September 26)
“Satisfaction”
Jagger doesn’t roll onto a lot of other people’s stages, so maybe he felt he owed her a big favor after she came to a Rolling Stones date in 2013 to duet on “As Tears Go By.” Or maybe he knows the biggest pop star in the Western world when he sees her and isn’t above a little backwards-generational fawning herself. Being there on the night when these two reunited on her stage? The definition of satisfaction.
