The UK’s first professional women’s gaming tournament of its kind starts on Saturday.

Four teams of professional gamers will play the first-person shooter game Valorant, which is the most-watched esports game in women’s leagues.

It is the first time Europe’s best teams have battled it out in the UK, and organisers hope it will bring more women into gaming.

“The more people see you can enjoy gaming as somebody who’s not native to it, the more confident they’ll get and the more they’ll enjoy it,” said host and streamer Meg ‘Megsoundslikeegg’ Gardner.

The players are competing over two days at London‘s Red Bull Gaming Sphere for a prize pool of £15,000.

Michaela ‘mimi’ Lintrup, who is the one of world’s best Valorant players and has been professionally gaming since she was 18, said: “Back then it was not a big thing like it is today.”

The 26-year-old Dane added: “We fought for a case of Red Bull or something, it was not a prize pool with money. I just played because I had passion for it and I loved it.”

But that’s all changed.

Last year, fans watched more than 28 million hours of professional women’s esports, according to industry tracker Esports Charts. The competitions are usually streamed on places like Twitch, TikTok and YouTube.

Those figures don’t even include people watching in China, where esports are so big that more people watched them than traditional sports at the 2023 Asian Games.

In esports, where people play competitively in a variety of video games, there are leagues, prizes and hordes of fans just like in other sports.

French player Mathilde ‘Nelo’ Beltoise, who is in a team called Karmine Corp, said the level of fandom in France is off the scale.

“Karmine Corp is so huge that everywhere you go, someone will recognise you. Every time I go into the street, I see someone with the jersey. It’s really huge,” she said.

The popularity of her team in France helped Beltoise’s parents, who are teachers, warm to the idea of her playing video games for a living.

“Sometimes one of their students has a Karmine Corp jersey on and they’re like, ‘Is that you?’ Now they just love it,” she explained.

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Being a professional gamer means glamorous-sounding international travel and online streaming, but it is also a regular nine to five job.

“We practice from Monday to Friday but when we get close to tournament time, we will add Sundays,” said Lintrup.

“We have four games a day which usually last for 50 minutes. Then we can talk a little bit about the mistakes we made [for 10 minutes before the next one]. Then we have about one and a half hours of theory time.”

Lintrup is the in-game leader of G2 Gozen and her role is fairly similar to that of a football captain.

She said: “After practice, I will usually stream or review which means I will go back and watch our games and point out the mistakes. I have to put in a bit of extra work. I love it like that.”

British competitor Sarah ‘sarah’ Ahmed is 18 years old and from Derby. She has been playing professionally for six months and became interested in gaming because of her brother.

She said: “He had a laptop and I didn’t so when I was 16, I got my first PC, and that’s when I started playing games, just like my brother.”

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Now, she is travelling the world, having recently competed in Turkey in the first-ever mixed-gender tournament. She described the moment she discovered the women’s gaming scene on Valorant.

“When I was younger, none of my friends played video games so whenever I played, it was just by myself, it was hard making girl friends.

“So when I saw there was a big community with a lot of girls just playing, I wanted to be a part of it.”

Valorant was released during one of the COVID lockdowns, when there was a surge in the number of people playing video games. Host Meg Gardner thinks it is more popular with women because of its storytelling.

She said: “Valorant is very good at being inclusive so you’ll see a lot of female characters that aren’t just in a supportive role, but like people that are very strong in the game. People want to pick them to play with.”

The Red Bull Instalock tournament is being streamed live on Twitch from 12pm UK time on Saturday and Sunday.

As the title suggests, The Tortured Poets Department is a break-up album, and one that doesn’t disappoint in deconstructing Taylor Swift’s failed relationships and old boyfriends gone bad.

We hear about a chain-smoking man who tells jokes that are “revolting and far too loud” in I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can); a “coward” who pretends to be a “lion” in loml; and we learn about a ghosted Swift in I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, as she sings “I’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague”.

We’ve all been there, and that’s the trick to Swift‘s wide appeal.

The not-so-subtly titled The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived paints a picture of a drug-taking partner who: “In public, showed me off, then sank in stoned oblivion,” tried to “buy some pills from a friend of friends” and “didn’t measure up in any measure of a man”.

Amid dealing with these waste-of-space men, we learn about a Swift – who contrary to her sparkling and strong public persona – is “depressed,” “crying at the gym,” eating “kid’s cereal,” “unstable… on my knees” and very much the owner of a “broken heart”.

Of course, not all of her songs are purely confessional – she also adopts different personas (for example in But Daddy I Love Him which shares the basic storyline of Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach), but in each track, we firmly return to Swift and parallels in her much-publicly dissected ‘private’ life.

With a history of writing about her exes (past examples include Joe Jonas, Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer), Swift hasn’t disappointed with seeming allusions to former British boyfriends Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy, plus throws forward to current beau NFL star Travis Kelce.

So Long, London – positioned fifth in the tracklist, a spot Swift reserves for her most meaningful songs – is a choral ballad and seems to be about the end of her six-year relationship with The Favourite star Alwyn.

Her lyric – “I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath” – references Hampstead Heath in north London where she lived with the star in the early 2020s.

As much a break-up song with the city as the man, she tells us “I’m just mad as hell cause I loved this place”.

In this song, we also get one of many references to marriage across the album – a theme which might be at the forefront of Swift’s mind?

Wedding bells and babies

So Long, London’s emotional lyric – “You swore that you loved me but where were the clues, I died on the altar waiting for the proof” – rings out loud and clear.

The song that gave the album its title – The Tortured Poets Department – describes a moment that paints a vivid picture: “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding.”

In loml (an acronym which stands for Love Of My Life) she sings: “You and I go from one kiss to gettin married… you told me I’m the love of your life.”

In But Daddy I Love Him – a ballad with country tones – she sings: “No, you can’t come to the wedding.”

And in imgonnagetyouback she says: “Whether I’m gonna be your wife or gonna smash up your bike, I haven’t decided yet.”

There’s even a reference to future family in The Manuscript – the final song on the album – with the lyric: “He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was, soon they’d be pushing strollers. But soon it was over.”

In Florida!!! (featuring Florence + The Machine) the topic of children comes up again, with Swift escaping to the Everglades, running from friends who “all smell like weed or little babies”.

Loves old and new

The 1975 singer Healy, who Swift is rumoured to have briefly dated following her split from Alwyn, appears to be alluded to in Fortnight – a song featuring Post Malone which will be the first single from the album.

She sings: “I touched you for only a fortnight… I love you, it’s ruining my life.”

In Guilty As Sin, a slow, drum-backed track, Swift describes “fatal fantasies,” “recalling things we never did” and looking back on a past relationship – “how I long for our trysts… How can I be guilty as sin?”

And in But Daddy I Love Him, it’s possible Swift’s hitting back at criticism of her never-officially-confirmed relationship with Healy, telling naysayers: “I’ll tell you something about my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace.”

The penultimate track on the initial album, The Alchemy, pulls in a wealth of American Football terms – seeming to mark the introduction of her latest relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce.

A swirl of “chemicals” – including “white wine” and “heroin” – are used as metaphors to describe the rush of first attraction amid a slew of sporting analogies.

Read more:
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The hidden meanings in the album’s lyrics

‘Self-harm’ and ‘wounds’

Swift told her social media followers the album was a reflection of “events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time,” calling them “both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure”.

And for Swift, the album itself appears to be a form of closure – in her words: “This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed”.

She also refers to personal wounding in the cover slip for the album, calling the period of her life one of “self-harm” and “cardiac arrest”. And on her love battle wounds she told fans: “A good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted”.

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It’s a self-reflection she shares in Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me, calling herself “fearsome,” “wretched” and “wrong,” singing in the chorus “I was tame, I was gentle, til the circus life made me mean”.

After over two decades in the music industry – a notoriously tough one to survive in let alone thrive in – we perhaps see a glimpse into Swift’s psyche in I Can Do It With A Broken Heart. She sings: “They said, ‘Babe, you gotta fake it til you make it’. And I did. Lights, camera, bitch smile. Even when you want to die.”

The original It Girl

And in Clara Bow (the name of a 1920s American actress for whom the term ‘It Girl’ was coined), the final track of the original album, she gives us a self-referring dig which touches on both the fickleness of the music industry and pokes fun at her own ever-inflating success.

We hear a young wannabe praised by “suits in LA,” telling her: “You look like Taylor Swift in this light, we’re loving it. You’ve got edge she never did.”

Always looking ahead, to her next era, perhaps when her “girlish glow flickers”, a now 30-something Swift is always one step ahead of the industry she’s currently dominating.

As she tells us: “The future’s bright… Dazzling.”

The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, featuring 31 tracks, is out now.

Taylor Swift is one of the world’s best-selling artists, a billionaire, and a record breaker. And she’s just 34.

With her 11th studio album – The Tortured Poets Department – out today (her follow up to 2022’s Grammy winning Midnights) the buzz around the singer is at fever pitch.

Update:
Swift reveals ‘secret double album’

Fans can expect 16 new tracks (addressing the five stages of heartbreak) and collaborations from the likes of Florence + The Machine and Post Malone.

With a history of writing about her exes (you know who you are, Joe Jonas, Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer), there’s much interest over whether any songs will refer to her English ex-boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn who she dated for six years until their split last year.

There’s a strong suggestion track number five (the slot she always gives to her most meaningful songs) – So Long London – may do just that.

And the very title of album may be referring to a WhatsApp group Alwyn previously set up with fellow actors Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, called The Tortured Man Club.

Speaking about it in 2022, the actors joked that they’d not been using it much since becoming less tortured. Four months later news of Swift and Alwyn’s split emerged.

Meanwhile, in current boyfriend news, Swift’s latest beau – Travis Kelce – says he’s had a listen to parts of the album and says it’s “unbelievable”.

The US star’s rise from teen country pop singer to all-round global phenomenon has been – well – swift.

We take a look at the unstoppable rise and rise of Taylor Swift.

Moving forward while reclaiming her past

She started out Taylor Alison Swift, born in Pennsylvania and named after singer-songwriter James Taylor.

Inspired to become a country singer after watching a documentary about Faith Hill (one of the genre’s best-selling stars), her parents upped sticks to move to Tennessee in 1993 to help her forge her music career, and Swift landed her first record deal aged just 13.

A musical chameleon, she’s switched up her genre a few times since then, moving from country to pop to alternative and folk.

And as well as moving forward artistically, she’s quite literally reclaimed her past too, re-recording her back catalogue since 2021 as a way to regain ownership of her music following a spat with talent manager Scooter Braun, who bought her former label Big Machine Records.

Earlier this year, Swift made Grammy history when she became the first person to win album of the year four times with Midnights.

She’s come a long way since Kanye West infamously stormed the stage at the 2009 VMAs as Swift accepted her award for best video by a female artist, a stunt he later claimed in a lyric “made that b**** famous“.

Her fame has been on the rise ever since – reaching peak Swift over the last few years.

Billionaire status

Swift is a billionaire, according to Forbes magazine, accumulating $1.1bn (£875m), based on earnings from her Eras Tour and the worth of her pop music catalogue.

It makes her the first musician to hit 10-figure status solely based on her songs and performances.

Following the start of her Eras Tour, kicking off in March 2023, she became the first artist to surpass $1bn (£800m) in revenue, breaking the Guinness World Record for the highest-grossing music tour.

Plus, she was the biggest-selling global recording artist of 2023, breaking another record by topping the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) global artist chart for a fourth time.

In 2023 Swift was ranked as Spotify’s most popular artist, and she became the first female artist to have four albums on Billboard’s top 10 list concurrently.

Her Eras Tour – which started out with 53 shows played across the US before expanding to include 78 international dates – has sold out stadiums around the world, with an estimated $900m in ticket sales last year, according to Billboard.

It’s projected to become the highest-grossing tour in history by the end of this year, forecast to push Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour into second place.

Plus, the Swift magic touch has boosted the local economies her tour has passed through.

Economic angel with the power to shake cities

Her seven sold-out concerts in Sydney and Melbourne in Australia in February were credited by the Australian Bureau of Statistics with increasing spending on clothing, merchandise, accessories and dining out across the month.

Six nights near Los Angeles added $320m (£257m) and 3,300 jobs to the area, according to the California Center for Jobs and the Economy.

And not content with ruling the music world or mending the economy, she has conquered the silver screen too, with a movie version of her concert tour taking over $250m (£200m) in ticket sales.

The movie generated the highest ticket sales at the UK and Ireland box office on its opening day, according to Vue International.

And did I mention, she can also cause minor natural disasters?

In July 2023, a Swift concert in Seattle was pointed to for setting off a nearby seismometer, registering the equivalent of a magnitude 2.3 earthquake.

She’s across politics and sport too – and fellow celebs love her

While never telling her fans who to vote for, Swift has encouraged voter registration, with Vote.org reporting 35,000 signups after Swift urged her 282 million followers on Instagram to vote in Super Tuesday primary contests across the US in March.

And putting the super into Super Bowl, her high-profile relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce has been credited with bringing more viewers to American Football. Indeed, sales of Kelce jerseys jumping 400% in one day, according to online seller Fanatics.

While she never went to college herself, numerous US colleges offer courses on her, including Harvard, Stanford and Bentley, while a university in Belgium offers a Swift-inspired literary class. Avoiding the hassle of years of study, in 2022 she received an honorary doctor of fine arts degree from New York University.

And earlier this year the Victoria And Albert Museum recruited for a Taylor Swift superfan adviser to help develop future Swift-themed programming.

It’s no surprise that Time magazine named her 2023’s person of the year.

Known for her dedication to her fans – inspiring friendship bracelets, handmade signs, and all sorts of memorabilia – she has a legion of celebrity fans too including Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts and Adam Sandler.

And in good news for UK fans – she’ll be coming soon to a city near you.

This summer she will play 15 UK shows as part of her Eras Tour, kicking off on 7 June in Edinburgh before coming to London on 21 June. Her extended London run will conclude at Wembley Stadium on 20 August.