Taylor Swift turned down a palace request to perform at the coronation

In February and March of this year, Buckingham Palace was having a hell of a time trying to book artists to perform at the coronation concert. It felt like every artist they went to turned them down – Adele, Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Harry Styles, the Spice Girls and several other British artists all turned down the palace flat. They even asked Kylie Minogue (an Aussie and a royalist) and she turned them down too. Well, Omid Scobie brought one other name into the list of artists who turned down the king: Taylor Swift!

Taylor Swift reportedly turned down an offer to perform at the King’s Coronation. The musician, 33, was in Nashville on her hugely successful Eras Tour during the King’s coronation on 6 May. Royal reporter Omid Scobie reported on the declined offer in his new book Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival.

Swift was not the only high-profile name to pass on the concert – Elton John, the Spice Girls, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran and Adele all reportedly said no to the offer. Scobie reported that it was “a challenge” to put together a line-up for the concert.

Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Andrea Bocelli and Take That all performed at the event in London on 7 May.

Scobie said that while “coronation refusals may seem frivolous”, they are also a sign of “something deeper at work”.

“Charles just doesn’t have the requisite gravitas, which is understandable, given he’s spent a majority of his life in the wake of the grand-class cruise ship of his mother’s reputation,” he said. “In our era of celebrity obsession and pop culture icons, if Elton and Harry Styles can’t be bothered, why should we be?”

[From Sky News]

I always thought the Ed Sheeran refusal was the most interesting one, because he had just performed at the Jubbly concert in 2022. But, as Scobie said, that was to honor QEII. It was pointed, how all of those big-name British artists said no – and that whole story was quickly buried as fast as possible. As for Swift, I would imagine her refusal was pretty simple – she probably just said “no thanks, my tour has already started” and left it at that. Amazing that Charles honestly thought he could book Taylor – the absolute audacity of it, truly. So he ended up going with Katy Perry and Lionel Richie. Sad!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, Cover Images.