Did Taylor Swift join Sabrina Carpenter at ACL Fest? Special guest is ‘Still the One’

“I thought it would be fun to give you a little gift tonight,” Sabrina Carpenter told thousands of Austin City Limits Music Festival patrons Saturday night. Then she brought out pop country icon Shania Twain, who joined her for radio classic “That Don’t Impress Me Much.”

Twain, a recent ACL Fest headliner herself, pulled the same stunt in 2023 and joined the Foo Fighters on the same stage — last time guesting on their hit “Best of you.”

But it wasn’t who fans hoped for.

The rumors that the biggest singer in America — Taylor Swift — would parachute onto the American Express stage Saturday night at ACL turned a high-profile gig into a Zilker madhouse. Fifteen minutes before the show someone came onstage and asked people to take five steps back. A message on the big screen showed up on a red background and big white cap letters saying “Attention: please take a few steps back and the show will resume shortly.” The additional security measures built anticipation.

But as the show rolled on with no “Showgirl,” some in the crowd became antsy.

“Where’s Taylor?” a fan behind me belted 30 minutes into Sabrina Carpenter’s headline set. 

So no Swift. But Carpenter gave us tools to grieve the epic Saturday snipe hunt: “Closure comes from yourself. It doesn’t come from anybody else,” she said.

Swift doing a cameo was never going to leave us full.