In a head-scratching move sure to befuddle mere financial mortals, Taylor Swift reportedly just said “no thanks” to a $9 million offer to perform a single private concert in the United Arab Emirates. The stunning claim comes courtesy of French Montana – the rapper who says he was offered a paltry $1 million to open for Swift at the very same ultra-exclusive UAE gig.
Spilling the tea in a VladTV interview, Montana says he was hit with the wildly lopsided split offer – $9 mil for Swift, $1 mil for himself – to perform “somewhere in Emirates” back in December. While the “Unforgettable” rapper didn’t name Swift directly, the astronomical $9 million figure he cited lines up perfectly with the 33-year-old pop megastar’s new billionaire tax bracket.
“They had a show offer for me and Taylor – her $9 million, me $1 million,” Montana said matter-of-factly, seemingly still bewildered at the idea of Swift leaving that type of life-altering money on the table. Perhaps he shouldn’t be – for the newly-minted richest musician on the planet, $9 million is now little more than a decent week’s pay.
For the rest of us though, that’s a staggering sum of cash to refuse for what was likely an hour or two of singing and shimmying. Swift’s reps have been silent on whether she actually did spurn such a stratospheric private gig offer. But if true, it would merely be the latest example of the “Anti-Hero” singer’s steadfast prioritization of her unmatched global fanbase over the wealthy elite.
While private concerts for the ultra-rich can mint multimillions for top-tier artists, they also risk alienating large swaths of fans and damaging carefully-cultivated brand reputations. For an elite talent like Swift – whose professional raison d’etre is so deeply intertwined with her self-professed mission of “reflecting everything and everybody who has touched her life” – the potential downsides may simply outweigh anyAmount of zeroes.
There’s also the not-so-small matter of Swift having just been officially crowned as not merely a millionaire or multimillionaire, but a full-fledged billionaire. As of this month, the freak-of-nature phenom’s net worth clocked in at a stupefying $1.1 billion, making her the first musician ever to hit 10-figure status from her artistic work alone, sans inherited wealth or entrepreneurial side gigs.
With eff-you money like that just from singing and strutting on stage, it’s easy to envision Swift shooing away distracting private booking offers like annoying flies. Why bother jetting off to cater to some oil tycoon’s private birthday bash when you’ve got a history-obliterating world tour to shepherd?
Speaking of which, Swift’s genre-reupholstering Eras Tour has been setting new revenue records by the week. Just a couple months into its planned 15-month global jaunt, the tour has already blazed past $1.2 billion in gross ticket sales. With over 100 concerts still left on the slate, credible forecasts see the trek ultimately crossing the $2 billion threshold before its August 2024 conclusion.
Given those unprecedented numbers, Swift shunning a $9 million “night’s work” almost seems like an odd flex in self-restraint. But as chart-topping rapper Montana can attest, the numbers that define Taylor’s world right now exist on another financial astral plane. Raking in a billion or two via globe-conquering arena gigs is just how the biggest of big dogs roll these days.
So while a quick $9 million paycheck might sound tantalizing to most everyone else on Earth, to modern music’s first billionaire, it probably rates as more of an insulting low-ball offer unworthy of her historic hitmaking catalog. When your tour is already Making Rain showers of money look like child’s play, what’s another Nine mil to shake off like an annoyance?
Perhaps the only real head-scratcher in all this is why Swift would be offered such relatively puny sums by UAE ultra-high-net-worth”promoters” to begin with. But then again, their concept of globally-transcendent wealth likely differs from Taylor’s new normal.
So shake it off, shake it off, T-Swizz. There are much bigger money moves in your immediate future than worrying about some $9 million desert mirage shimmering on the horizon. The Eras touring machine has many more billions left to render…
