Last week, Taylor Swift became a billionaire. She also became a 399lb pumpkin.
For 35 years, Jeanette Paras has “pumpkinized” celebrities, turning giant gourds into their likenesses in an effort to drum up breast cancer awareness for charities. This year, her muse was a no-brainer: Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour and concert documentary were cultural events, and her romance with the NFL star Travis Kelce dominates tabloid headlines.
“This is probably my favorite character so far,” says Paras, who has also painted gourds of Ted Lasso, Kim Jong-un and Rudy Giuliani. “I really think Taylor would like it. For a round, 400lb, giant celebrity pumpkin, I think it’s pretty good.”
It took Paras about 12 hours using acrylic paint to complete Swift’s face, and she affixed nine wigs to the top to create the musician’s signature dirty blonde hair. There’s no word on whether Swift has seen the finished work.
Around the country and on TikTok, people are turning their Halloween decor into Swiftie installations. It’s not just Paras’s 399lb pumpkin, which is parked outside her Dublin, Ohio, house and has drawn visitors from as far away as Florida and California.
In Zionsville, Indiana, Michal Owens dressed two 12ft skeletons as Swift and Kelce waving a “Taylor Swift for President” flag. Back east in Sleepy Hollow, New York, Denise Scaglione built a “boyfriend graveyard” with names of the singer’s many exes written on faux stones.
In Phoenix, Arizona, Heather Corcoran, a stay-at-home mom, says she “needs to find ways to be creative”.
Her neighborhood takes Halloween seriously, so Corcoran pulled “spookier elements” from Swift’s music videos and appearances, setting each one up outside her lawn. There are lots of skeletons, naturally, with one wearing a shirt that reads “Who’s Taylor Swift Anyway? Ew”. (Fans recognized this as a cheeky top Swift wears on stage.) Corcoran dressed another body of bones in a frosty blue ball gown similar to the Oscar de la Renta number Swift donned at the Eras Tour film premiere.
“I probably spent around $400 on the display, total,” Corcoran says. “I sewed a lot of the costumes starting around September. I’d say it took me 20 hours or so.” She’s also made 200 friendship bracelets, so that kids waiting for the school bus nearby can trade accessories, mimicking a tradition that concertgoers began at this summer’s tour.
“Her fans are such diehards, and they’ll do anything to show support,” Corcoran says. “I’m 37 years old – I’m not trying to be an influencer – but when I posted about my decorations at work I got so many messages. It’s a weird time in history where everyone’s so sad, so anything out of the usual is nice.”
On TikTok, Corcoran connected with Kate McLaughlin, who decked her Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, lawn out in skeletons re-creating a bit in Swift’s tour when the singer brings out dancers behind glass cages, all dressed in her past costumes. “My husband didn’t know what I was talking about when I first had the idea,” she says. “I was like, OK, I’m going to need 10 skeletons.”
McLaughlin pooled resources with her family, and then began watching TikToks of that tour segment to see what outfits she would need to copy. She went to thrift stores and used items in her closet for costumes, which include a sparkling bodysuit, yellow fringe dress and sequin majorette jacket.
“I probably spent around $500,” McLaughlin said. “I wanted to make sure that anything I bought I could re-wear for a future costume. And yeah, I probably went overboard.”
McLaughlin says her neighbors love the display, and her favorite encounter has been with a young girl who rang her doorbell to compliment the yard. The girl said she saw Swift perform in Los Angeles and met Swift’s father, Scott Kingsley, backstage. He gave the girl a handful of guitar picks as a souvenir, and she gave one to McLaughlin. “I was crying on my porch, and her mom was crying, and she was crying,” she said.
This year’s top Halloween costumes have also revolved around Swift, with the New York Times reporting on parties where multiple couples showed up as the singer and her new boyfriend. Anyone can assemble a quick costume. But it takes time, money, and serious dedication to transform a yard – or a 399lb pumpkin.
“I know a lot of people have done things with Travis Kelce jerseys,” McLaughlin said. “I tried to stay away from that, because I really just want it to be about her music. I hope that if Taylor sees my yard, she appreciates that it’s just about her.”
