Taylor Swift’s appearance at the Super Bowl game in Las Vegas unleashed passions, as did the means of transportation she used to get there. The star is criticized for the intensive use of his ultra-polluting private jet.
Taylor Swift will be the star of the 2024 Super Bowl. She doesn’t sing or play American football, yet all eyes will be on the star, who only came to support her boyfriend, the Kansas City Chiefs player, Travis Kelce.
The way in which Taylor Swift should travel to Las Vegas, where the competition takes place, is also at the heart of the debate. Because on Saturday evening, the day before the match, the singer performed in Tokyo, as part of her Eras Tour, approximately 11 hours away by flight, and some 8,900 kilometers away.
Taylor Swift’s trip to Las Vegas has been the subject of much speculation. Even the Japanese embassy got involved, as spotted by Le Monde, tweeting on February 2, in a message peppered with references to the singer’s albums, that despite the 12 hours of flight and the 17 hours of time difference, she could “assure with serenity that if Taylor Swift leaves Tokyo after her concert, she should arrive quietly in Las Vegas before the Super Bowl begins.”
In time for the Super Bowl
The singer jumped on a jet and landed in Los Angeles on Saturday evening, taking advantage of the favorable time difference, according to the news site TMZ.
Beyond this journey, it is the more global question of private jet travel that shocks environmental defenders.
“Super-rich celebrities like Taylor Swift are destroying our planet to the detriment of the entire world. Private jets are the most climate-destroying means of transportation and constitute the height of climate injustice,” says Hannah Lawrence to The Independent , from Stay Grounded, a climate movement that works to reduce air travel, particularly by private jets.
Taylor Swift is the celebrity with the biggest carbon footprint. Between January and July 2022, it would have carried out 170 flights and emitted 8,293.54 tonnes of CO2, or 1,184.8 times more than the total annual emissions of an average person, according to l’agence Yard specializing in sustainable marketing, using data collected by the CelebrityJets Twitter account.
The singer also has little interest in being “followed” in this way. His lawyers have threatened to sue Jack Sweeney, a student who tracks the travel of stars in private jets and publishes them on social networks. He is the founder of CelebrityJets, which relays the travel of celebrities, including Elon Musk.
“Emotional distress”
In December 2023, Jack Sweeney received a letter from Taylor Swift’s lawyers at his parents’ home, according to a copy sent by the student to Washington Post and extracts of which were published this Tuesday, February 6.
In this missive, Taylor Swift’s lawyer, Katie Morrone, estimated that the Twitter account dedicated to tracking the singer’s jet had caused “direct and irreparable harm” to the star, as well as “emotional and physical distress” .
She also claimed that the information relayed by Jack Sweeney constituted a “road map” for harassers “desiring to harm her or having malicious or violent intentions” against the singer.
But Taylor Swift is not the only big polluter among celebrities. Boxer Floyd Mayweather and rapper Jay-Z are well placed behind the singer, in this ranking which also includes Steven Spielberg and Kim Kardashian, respectively 6th and 7th.
In any case, the protests of environmental defenders do not seem to bother private jet users much. A few hours before the Super Bowl, the Federal Aviation Administration estimates that around 500 private jets will land in Las Vegas for the game.