Taylor Swift has nothing but love and praise for her short and sweet BFF Sabrina Carpenter.
Swift, 34, took to social media on Tuesday, October 29, to reflect on her three-night Eras Tour stint in New Orleans over the weekend, and praised her longtime pal for using her limited downtime from her own Short n’ Sweet Tour to pop in for a surprise duet.
“One of the things I’ll always remember from this weekend was getting to surprise the crowd with a performance by the pop princess of our dreams, @sabrinacarpenter. Side note: She had one day off from her very exhaustive tour schedule,“ Swift wrote via Instagram alongside a slideshow of her time in NOLA. “Her show is physically full on and spectacular, and she could’ve been resting in her time off.”
Swift went on to note the reason why she respects Carpenter so much, explaining “She does things like this, goes out of her way to give fans a surprise moment they didn’t expect. She’s as real as they come and I’m so thankful she did that for us.”
Carpenter, 25, appeared during the last night of Swift’s NOLA stay at The Caesars Superdome, which ran from Thursday, October 24, to Saturday October 27. The “Taste” singer hopped over after her Friday, October 26, performance in Tampa, Florida to meet up with Swift in The Big Easy for her Surprise Song accoustic set.
Swift teased the big reveal to fans on Saturday by first playing an acoustic version of Carpenter’s “Espresso” on the guitar. “I think tonight I’m gonna do something completely different, which is I’m gonna sing a song that’s not mine but it’s somebody that I really love, so I want to see how loud you can sing this song,” Swift teased the crowd. “It’s been stuck in my head and it would make me feel good if I knew that 65,000 other people had this song stuck in their head just like I do.”
She quickly paused after hearing the audience’s roars and began to praise Carpenter for the banger year she’s had in music.
“Oh, so you really love that song as much as I do? I know I’m just, like, going on a tangent because I love my friend and I’m just so proud of Sabrina and the year that she’s had,” Swift said. “This year, she’s just taken off, like her tour, you can’t get tickets to it, the album is No. 1 constantly and I’m just, like, … is it ok if I call her and you guys can say hi?”
Swift then rang Carpenter up on the phone, asking her, “What are you doing? Why aren’t you here with us?” Carpenter made a joke about being somewhere with lots of “screaming” before popping up on stage and greeting Swift with a hug.
The pair then launched into an epic mashup of their songs, starting off with more “Espresso” before leading into Swift’s “Is It Over Now?” They finished up the set with a Carpenter’s “Please, Please, Please.”
Saturday wasn’t the first time Swift has brought Carpenter on stage. The “Nonsense” singer was an opening act during the South America, Asia, and Australia leg of Swift’s global tour. In February, the pair teamed up for a a medley of Swift’s “White Horse” and “Coney Island” off, off her Fearless and Evermore albums.
Saturday’s duet is likely their last for awhile; Carpenter is headed to Dallas, Texas, to continue her Short n’ Sweet tour, while Swift is continuing the last leg of her Eras Tour in Indianapolis. The nearly two-year event will wrap up on December 8 in Vancouver, Canada.
True to form, Swift’s social media post on Tuesday also gave a big shoutout to the people who have made her tour possible: her fans. She thanked them for “three magical nights in Louisiana,” as she does for nearly every city she visits.
“I’m still smiling thinking about that wonderful weekend,” she wrote. “The city really welcomed us with open arms (with friendship bracelets on those metaphorical arms) and celebrated the tour with such flare.”