Taylor Swift's New Girl Cameo Makes Zero Sense

In the Season 2 finale of "New Girl" — a beloved sitcom that ran for seven seasons on Fox — fans were probably pretty surprised when one of the planet's biggest pop stars showed up for a small yet pivotal cameo.

Cece (Hannah Simone), the best friend of the titular new girl Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel), is all set to wed Shivrang (Satya Bhabha) in an arranged marriage, and to say the wedding day isn't going smoothly is an understatement. (For starters, there's a whole situation with a badger running through the air ducts above the ceremony.) It all comes to a head, though, when Shivrang's old girlfriend Elaine objects at the very last minute, declaring her love for Cece's groom just before the two run off into the sunset together — complete with a joke about how tall Elaine is compared to the diminutive Shivrang.

So who plays Elaine? That would be Taylor Alison Swift. You might have heard of her at some point — she's pretty popular, and she was already a big deal back in 2013 when this episode originally aired. But while her cameo is definitely funny, it doesn't make a lick of sense because throughout "New Girl," characters reference Taylor Swift all the time. If she's real within the "New Girl" universe — and not just real, but a major pop sensation whose songs apparently soundtrack Jess' breakups — then how can she possibly also be Elaine? This was a cute gesture, but here's why Taylor Swift's "New Girl" cameo is ultimately kind of bizarre.

Throughout Season 2 — long before Taylor Swift plays Elaine in the finale — the "New Girl" characters reference the pop megastar casually and regularly, making her cameo that much more baffling. In the second season's third episode, "Fluffer," Cece receives an emergency text from her ex-fling Schmidt (Max Greenfield) and is then forced to ask if the fact that he's experiencing a "Taylor Swift-like range of emotions" should be concerning. The 16th episode, titled "Table 34," sees a dejected Jess drinking pink wine and listening to "22," Swift's single from the original version of 2012's "Red," while Nick (Jake Johnson) dances terribly to try and cheer her up. "I just wanted to listen to Taylor Swift alone!" Jess yells through tears, which became one of the show's most heavily memed moments.

Then, in Season 4's episode, "Walk of Shame," Swift comes up yet again when Cece reveals that her hairdresser is worried about Swift living in New York all by herself, and Jess agrees, saying, "Well, yeah, we all are." Swift ends up inspiring both Jess and Cece, though, when they realize that if the pop star can comfortably reside in luxurious Manhattan lofts on her own, they, too, can do anything they want.

Interestingly, another huge musician appeared on "New Girl," but he simply played himself. In the show's third season, Prince appeared as himself in an episode aptly titled "Prince," which aired after the 2014 Super Bowl.

Like Taylor Swift's Elaine, Prince got actively involved in the characters' messy on-screen love affairs, but instead of breaking up a marriage, he helped Jess and Nick realize they were in love with one another. According to Jake Johnson, this was largely Prince's idea. During a 2022 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Johnson said that, as a fan of the show, Prince really wanted Nick and Jess' relationship to work: "He said he'll do the show if he could help them get together, and he got to live the whole fantasy. He wanted them together, and we wanted Prince! Prince is the best."

The way Prince's "New Girl" appearance was structured made total sense, so maybe Swift should have tried something similar. There's no real reason that Shivrang couldn't have run away with Swift herself instead of a fictional creation named Elaine. If Swift had just played herself in her cameo, it wouldn't have interrupted the show's continuity ... and honestly, it would have been even funnier that Shivrang dated one of the most famous musicians of all time before getting together with Cece and never thought to mention it to anyone.

Years after "New Girl" wrapped up its run on Fox, its bond with Taylor Swift's career remains strong because the show's stars are Swifties in real life. The best example of this is Max Greenfield, who showed up to one of Swift's six sold-out Eras Tour shows at Los Angeles' So-Fi Stadium in August.

Just like Swift's other devoted fans, Greenfield, who attended the show alongside his wife and daughter, showed up adorned with friendship bracelets (which Swifties trade before, throughout, and after the epic three-hour concert), and eagle-eyed fans spotted a "New Girl" reference in his Instagram post commemorating the experience. One of Greenfield's many bracelets clearly spells out "Elaine's Big Day," referring to the episode where Greenfield appeared alongside Swift.

Swift's "New Girl" cameo might have created a confusing conundrum within the show's narrative, but clearly, the stars of the series are still pretty psyched that a mega-watt star showed up to do such a short cameo. If you want to relive Swift's brief time on "New Girl," you can stream it on Hulu.