Taylor Swift Brings a 30-Year-Old Surprise to the Toy Story 5 Premiere

Of all the things Taylor Swift could have carried down the red carpet at Tuesday night's Toy Story 5 world premiere, she chose a cardboard-sleeved relic from her own childhood: a VHS copy of the original 1995 film, kept safe for more than three decades.

The tape quickly became the most photographed object at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre. Swift asked Tom Hanks, the voice of Woody, to autograph it, and the actor later joked to USA Today that the cassette "could go in the Smithsonian". Tim Allen appeared to add Buzz Lightyear's famous catchphrase, To infinity and beyond, and other cast members signed it too, leaving one of the world's biggest pop stars brandishing the tape in group photos like a devoted fan from the nineties.

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A Song Written for Jessie

Swift's presence was no coincidence. She wrote and produced I Knew It, I Knew You, a country-leaning ballad inspired by cowgirl Jessie, for the film's soundtrack alongside longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff. Released on 5 June, the track is her first new material since The Life of a Showgirl and has already broken first-day streaming records on several major platforms.

The singer, who was five years old when the first Toy Story reached cinemas, said on Instagram that writing the song felt like "a musical departure and coming home at the same time", and thanked director Andrew Stanton for imagining her in the role when the film was first written.

Then Came Randy Newman

After the screening, Swift swapped her Erdem red-carpet mini dress for a floor-length yellow gown and sat down at a grand piano to perform I Knew It, I Knew You live for the very first time. She then welcomed Randy Newman, the franchise's Oscar-winning composer, to the stage for a stripped-back duet of You've Got a Friend in Me, with Newman taking the piano as the pair traded lines on the 1995 classic. The audience inside the Dolby Theatre responded with a standing ovation.

The performance capped a night with one of the starriest celebrity turnouts of the year so far, with Hanks, Allen, Joan Cusack and Greta Lee among the cast in attendance.

Toy Story 5, directed by Andrew Stanton for Pixar, opens in cinemas on 19 June — a date that also marks the 20th anniversary of Swift's debut single, Tim McGraw. For an artist who has spent two decades turning personal history into pop spectacle, the timing could hardly be more fitting.