Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album during an appearance on her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast.

The pop megastar, appearing on New Heights, did not say when the record, titled The Life Of A Showgirl, will be released.

Fans can pre-order the album in various formats now and Swift’s website says physical copies will be shipped by 13 October.

On Monday, Taylor Nation – an official branch of the singer’s marketing team – teased the release on TikTok with a slideshow of 12 images alongside the caption: “Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era…'”

Swift is seen wearing orange in every picture.

A special limited vinyl edition of the album will be released in “Portofino orange glitter”, according to a pre-order page on her site. A special cassette edition is also available for pre-order.

A brief clip from the New Heights podcast, hosted by Swift’s NFL star boyfriend, Travis Kelce and his brother Jason, a former NFL player, was posted on Instagram early on Tuesday.

The video showed Swift pulling a copy of the album from a briefcase with the cover blurred.

The full podcast episode will be released at 11pm on Tuesday, UK time.

Swift is living up to her reputation as pop’s hardest-working star

Gemma Peplow

Culture and entertainment reporter

@gemmapeplow

You might think that after pulling off the highest-grossing tour in history, all while writing and releasing an unexpected record-breaking double album at the same time, Taylor Swift would be happy to take a little break.

But no. The singer-songwriter has announced her 12th album, her sixth in six years.

Since her self-titled debut in 2006, the longest period Swifties have had to wait is just three years, between 2014’s 1989 and 2017’s Reputation; the period in which the star took time out following her public feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

Over the past few years, Swift has also re-recorded and re-released four of her early albums in a (now resolved) battle over the rights to her master recordings.

With the new announcement, she’s living up to her reputation as the hardest-working star in pop.

Album number 12 is titled The Life Of A Showgirl, hinting at inspiration drawn from spending the best part of two years on the road – and perhaps a return to pop after embracing folk and her more gothic side.

Fans are now eagerly waiting to find out what Swift’s new era will bring.

New Heights had previously teased Swift’s appearance by posting an orange image on social media with a mysterious silhouette, which many correctly identified as the pop star.

The Life Of A Showgirl follows Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, released last year during her record-breaking Eras tour, which generated more than $2.2bn (£1.6bn) across two years and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.

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It marks her first release since she took back control over her entire back catalogue from private equity firm Shamrock Capital for an undisclosed amount.

In an effort to regain control over her music in recent years, Swift has been re-recording and releasing her first six albums. The move was prompted by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalogue.

Some of the ‘Taylor’s Version’ releases have included new songs as well as Easter eggs and visuals to offer a deeper understanding of her work.

The four re-recorded albums released so far have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each one entering the Billboard 200 US album chart at number one, helping her become the woman with the most number one albums in history.

Ministers have lined up insolvency practitioners to prepare for the potential collapse of Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water utility.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has signed off the appointment of FTI Consulting to advise on contingency plans for Thames Water to be placed into a Special Administration regime (SAR).

Sources said on Tuesday that the advisory role established FTI Consulting as the frontrunner to act as the company’s administrator if it fails to secure a private sector bailout – although approval of such an appointment would be decided in court.

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Thames Water, its largest group of creditors and Ofwat, the industry regulator, have been locked in talks for months about a deal that would see its lenders injecting about £5bn of new capital and writing off roughly £12bn of value across its capital structure.

The discussions are said to be progressing constructively, although they appear to rely in part on the prospect of the company being granted forbearance on hundreds of millions of pounds of regulatory fines.

Responding to an enquiry from Sky News on Tuesday, a government spokesperson said: “The government will always act in the national interest on these issues.

“The company remains financially stable, but we have stepped up our preparations and stand ready for all eventualities, including applying for a Special Administration Regime if that were to become necessary.”

Insiders stressed that FTI Consulting’s engagement by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) did not signal that Thames Water was about to collapse into insolvency proceedings.

A SAR would ensure that customers would continue to receive water and sewage services if Thames Water collapsed, while putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of pounds in bailout costs – a scenario the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is keen to avoid at a time when the public finances are already severely constrained.

The SAR process can only be instigated in the event that a company becomes insolvent, can no longer fulfil its statutory duties or breaches an enforcement order, according to insiders.

Mr Reed has repeatedly stressed the government’s desire to avoid taking Thames Water into temporary public ownership, but that it was ready to deal with “all eventualities”.

“Thames Water must meet its statutory and regulatory obligations to its customers and to the environment–it is only right that the company is subject to the same consequences as any other water company.

The company remains financially stable, but we have stepped up our preparations and stand ready for all eventualities,” he told the House of Commons in June.

Thames Water, which has about 16m customers, serves about a quarter of the UK’s population.

It is drowning under close to £20bn of debt, and was previously owned by Macquarie, the Australian infrastructure and banking behemoth.

Its most recent consortium of shareholders, which included the Universities Superannuation Scheme and an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, have written off the value of their investments in the company.

The government’s SAR process has only been tested once before, when the energy retailer Bulb failed in 2021.

Bulb was ultimately sold to Octopus Energy with the taxpayer funding used to save and run the company since having been repaid.

Thames Water is racing to secure a rescue plan involving funds such as Elliott Management and Silver Point Capital, with a deadline of late October to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority against Ofwat’s final determination on its next five-year spending plan.

Ofwat has ruled that Thames Water can spend £20.5bn during the period from 2026, with the company arguing that it requires a further sum of approximately £4bn.

Mike McTighe, a veteran corporate troubleshooter who chairs BT Group’s Openreach division, has been parachuted in to work with the funds.

The company said in its accounts last month that there was “material uncertainty” over whether it could be solvently recapitalised.

Earlier this year, Thames Water was fined a record £123m over sewage leaks and the payment of dividends, with Ofwat lambasting the company over its performance and governance.

In recent weeks, Thames Water has been engulfed in a row over the legitimacy of bonuses paid to chief executive Chris Weston and other bosses, even as it attempts to secure its survival.

Under new laws, Thames Water is among half a dozen water companies which have been barred from paying bonuses this year because of their poor environmental records.

The creditor group was effectively left as the sole bidder for Thames Water after the private equity firm KKR withdrew from the process, citing political and reputational risks.

The Hong Kong-based investor CK Infrastructure Holdings (CKI), which already owns Northumbrian Water, has sought to re-engage in talks about a rescue deal but has gained little traction in doing so.

News of FTI Consulting’s appointment also comes on the same day as a “nationally significant” water shortfall was declared across swathes of the country.

Last week, Sky News revealed that David Black, the Ofwat chief executive, was to step down following the publication of a government-commissioned review which recommended the regulator’s abolition.

He has been replaced by Chris Walters, another Ofwat executive, on an interim basis.

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