'Jeopardy!' Sparks Debate Over Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is a core part of the pop culture zeitgeist and now she's divided the internet after taking over a category of Jeopardy!

Currently hosted solely by Jeopardy! uber champ Ken Jennings after Mayim Bialik's recent exit, the show sees three contestants face off against one another each episode, where they boost their cash total by answering clues on a wide range of subjects.

As any fan of the enduringly popular syndicated show knows, contestants are required to respond to the clues in question form. Jeopardy! is currently in its 40th season, and on Wednesday night's episode of the game show, an entire round of trivia had categories inspired by the pop superstar's song titles and lyrics.

Contestants had to try their best to answer questions in categories titled "Love Story," "Our Song," "Bad Blood," "Shake It Off," "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "The Errors Tour." While the questions were not Swift-related, the categories referred to some of her hit songs, as well as her blockbuster Eras Tour, which continues later this year. The "Love Story" category was about fictional romances, while the extra question for "Shake It Off" asked contestants to "shake off" a few letters from a word to get the answer.

The Jeopardy! Instagram account teased news about the category. It showed a video of the category titles with a video of Swift and captioned the post: "This ... is ... #Jeopardy! (Taylor's Version)."

People took to the comments to share their thoughts—and opinion was divided. Newsweek contacted Sony Pictures TV, the studio that owns the game show, and Swift's publicist for comment via email Friday.

"You gotta be kidding me," one person wrote alongside a variety of unimpressed emojis.

"Over her and jeopardy," said another.

"Too much Swift spam," a third person wrote.

A fourth added: "Oh god no."

Swifties took to the comments to share their support for the pop star and slam those who were being critical.

"MY TWO WORLDS ARE COLLIDING," an Instagram user wrote.

"People are so angry at something that literally has no affect on their lives. It's hilarious to me," a different person commented.

"Yes haters let the hate flow through you and comment. Scrolling past something that doesn't hold your interest is for the unimportant you clearly have big important opinions," said another.

"Jeopardy you never cease to surprise me on how you keep up with what's trending," a fourth person wrote.

A fifth added: "Unexpected and totally loved these categories tonight! I'm a Swiftie and a Jeopardy fan so it was amazing."

The X account (formerly Twitter) @TheSwiftSociety also shared an image of the category names. At the time of writing, the post had been viewed 339,000 times.

This isn't the first time Swift has been featured on the game show. On a Celebrity Jeopardy! episode in 2023, there was an entire category of Swift-related questions called "Also a Taylor Swift Song." Contestants faced questions about words that mean one thing, but are also the name of one of Swift's hit songs.

The Swift mentions don't end there, in 2022 there was a question about her Lover single You Need to Calm Down.