Taylor Swift Reveals Secret Eras Tour Fact About ‘TayRoomba’ Used for ‘Down Bad’ and ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’

Mar. 15, 2025

Taylor Swift performs atop the ‘TayRoomba’ rover at the Eras Tour in May 2024.Photo:Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty

Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty

Taylor Swifthas levitated across the stage on a moving platform — that fans have dubbed the“TayRoomba”— during two songs at the Eras Tour ever since the apparatus made its onstage debut in France in May.

After readingThe Eras Tour Bookupon its release on Friday, Nov. 29, Swifties were surprised to learn a person is inside the “rover” while Swift, 34, performs atop it amidThe Tortured Poets Departmentera of the show.

One fan reacted to the unexpected tour fact onX (formerly known as Twitter), writing, “omg i’m craaacking up at this revelation. what do you MEAN someone’s in tayroomba driving it around like a video game?”

Taylor Swift performs ‘Down Bad’ while kneeling on her rover in May 2024.Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty

The “TayRoomba” debuted on May 9, in Paris, after Swift revamped the Eras Tour setlist to include songs fromTTPD, her 11th studio album she released in April when the tour was on a hiatus.

Since then, the rover has appeared at every tour stop, rising from the stage during“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”to help Swift “levitate” as she sings, “I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.”

Swift then kneels on it for“Down Bad,”during which the stage production simulates her being brought back to Earth after an alien abduction as a metaphor for being love-bombed and then abandoned in real life.

“I wanted to create the illusion of an alien abduction, a battle scene, a religious institution, a mental institution, a haunted house, and a showgirl’s dressing room routine,” Swift wrote in the tour book, describing the visuals for all of theTTPDsongs on her 45-song career-spanning setlist.

Taylor Swift performs ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’ at the Eras Tour in November 2024.Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty

Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty

“It was ambitious as hell but we pulled it off, creating what I think is the most dramatic, cathartic, female-rage driven part of the night,” she added.

Now knowing that a crew member lies inside the rover, fans went back to watch Swift’s“I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” music videoto see if she had hinted at this fact all along.

To their surprise, at the 37-second mark, Swift can be seen rehearsing on the rover as two feet stick out of the bottom of the apparatus.

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A screengrab from the ‘I Can Do It with a Broken Heart’ music video.Taylor Swift/YouTube

Taylor Swift/YouTube

In the tour book, Swift elaborated on how theTTPDvisuals came to be.

“We conceptualized and rehearsed it secretly, and surprised the Paris crowd with it when we started our European leg of the tour. I wanted it to be minimalist, white, stark, and bold,” the“Fortnight”singer explained.

“There was nothing else in the show like it, and it was such an exciting challenge to try to improve upon a show I already loved,” Swift added.

source: people.com