Taylor Swift has shared a previously unseen ‘Mirrorball’ performance after winning the prize for Tour Of The Century at the iHeartRadio Music Awards 2025.
Honouring the station’s most played artist and songs of the past year, the iHeartRadio Music Awards had previously announced a new award for Swift for her historic career-spanning ‘Eras’ tour run.
The colossal tour ended in December at Vancouver, British Columbia’s BC Place Stadium, after a mammoth run of 149 shows had taken place across 21 months. By the tour’s midpoint, Swift had already history when it became the first tour to gross $1billion (£796million). Prior to that, it was estimated that, once it had concluded, the tour would be the most lucrative in music history.
It was later revealed that in total, the worldwide trek sold $2,077,618,725 (£1.6billion) worth of tickets, doubling the record for any other concert tour in history, including Coldplay‘s ‘Music of the Spheres’ tour, which last August was announced as the highest-grossing rock tour ever.
🚨| Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for "Tour of the Century" for 'The Eras Tour'! #iHeartAwards2025
"This is actually the 2 year anniversary of the first show of The Eras Tour. I've been doing a lot of processing"
— The Eras Tour (@tswifterastour) March 18, 2025
At yesterday’s (March 17) event, self-professed Swiftie Nikki Glaser announced the honour, revealing she had attended 22 concerts of the trek. “Never in my childless dog lady life will I ever witness a live performance of that magnitude,” the comedian said.
“Every single show was a marathon of perfection, the vocals, the athleticism, the costumes, the secret songs, my bedazzled adult diaper – those are memories and a rash I’ll have forever. So it makes perfect sense why iHeartRadio is giving Taylor Swift the award for tour of the century.”
Swift was not in the building to accept the award, but sent along a video thanking iHeart and the fans that came along to the tour.
“I’ve been doing a lot of processing since I’ve been off the road these last few months,” Swift said. “And, you know, people often say that sometimes the greatest challenges in life end up being something you’re so proud of, or end up being the most gratifying feeling in the end, if you can rise to the occasion.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at Rogers Centre on November 14, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
“And this tour was absolutely the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life. Three and a half hour shows more shows than I’ve ever done on a tour, and it really was the most gratifying thing I’ve ever done.”
She went on to say she was “so proud” of the massive run of show, thanking the fans that came along and supported her across several albums. “The only reason I was able to take on those challenges, among others, the ambition of the production, the length of the show, the amount of shows, all the different countries we played in, that’s all because of the fans,” she said.
As a thank you gesture in her absence, Swift shared a video of her ‘Mirrorball’ performance from the surprise set of her Glendale, Arizona, Eras Tour Night One kickoff show.
🚨| Full performance of “mirrorball” from the opening night of “The Eras Tour”.
— Taylor Swift Updates (@TSUpdating) March 18, 2025
“You made the songs for the last couple decades into what they became so that we could do a three and a half hour setlist. You had the passion and the generosity to care about traveling to see us on tour in all these places all over the world. It blows my mind. I’m never going to stop being grateful for it, and I appreciate this more than you know.”
Elsewhere in the night, Gracie Abrams accepted the award for Breakthrough Artist, and thanked Swift for including her on The Eras Tour as an opening act, having previously declared that no man has “come close to defining pop culture” like she had.
English (US) · 