Taylor Swift’s 3 new Eras Tour openers have connections to Rihanna, Ed Sheeran, and Imagine Dragons. Here’s everything to know about the rising stars.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour cast is expanding. Swift, who’s currently in the midst of the tour’s European leg, has already welcomed an array of artists to share her stage, including Phoebe Bridgers, Sabrina Carpenter, MUNA, Gayle, Gracie Abrams, and more. But on Monday, Swift announced that she’d recruited three more rising stars.

Mette, Griff, and Benson Boone will join Paramore as openers for Swift’s set of London shows: Mette will perform on Friday, June 21; Griff on Saturday, June 22; and Boone on Sunday, June 23. (Swift will return to Wembley Stadium for five additional dates in August, but those openers have not yet been announced.) “Thought this might be a fun time to announce the first group of opening acts I’ll be adding to the London shows, going on before Paramore,” Swift wrote on her Instagram Story. “I chose artists whose music I love listening to, and I can’t wait for them to add an extra jolt of excitement to our shows.”

If you’ve yet to add Mette, Griff, or Boone to your own playlists, keep reading for a primer on their careers so far. The lowdown: Mette Towley, who releases music mononymously as Mette, is a singer, dancer, and actor from Minnesota. She initially received acclaim after starring in the 2017 music video for “Lemon” by N.E.R.D and Rihanna; the clip opens with Rihanna shaving Mette’s head. You may also recognize her from a brief cameo as the discontinued Video Girl doll in the 2023 blockbuster “Barbie.”

Mette and Swift most likely met on the set of 2019’s “Cats,” in which Mette played Cassandra. (Swift portrayed Bombalurina in the unsettling adaptation of the Broadway play.) More recently, Mette released her debut EP “Mettenarrative” and toured with the UK’s disco darling Jessie Ware. “I really wanted to be an artist growing up, but dance was where I felt most confident in my abilities,” she told Vogue last year. “Even when I started making this EP back in 2019, I didn’t tell most of the people I knew, my friends and collaborators. It just still felt so far away. Now, I feel like I can truly claim that for myself.”

“I have nothing to prove,” she added. “Only to share.” In addition to joining The Eras Tour this summer, Mette will also perform at Lollapalooza in Chicago. The lowdown: Griff — born Sarah Faith Griffiths in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, to a Jamaican father and Chinese mother — has described herself as a lifelong Swiftie. “She’s probably one of the No. 1 people that I look up to in terms of being a songwriter and being a top female in the music industry and being so consistent and coming back, time after time after time, with incredible songs,” Griff told Nylon. “I even said that to her.”

The two musicians met at the 2021 Brit Awards, where Griff received the annual rising star award and performed her popular single “Black Hole.” (Swift had previously called herself a “huge fan” and even gave Griff a shout-out while accepting the global icon award.)

Griff kept her music aspirations a secret at school and only began pursuing it in earnest after finishing her A-Level exams. Instead of enrolling in a university, she took a “gap year” that quickly snowballed into a professional career. After releasing a string of well-received singles, she opened on tour for Ed Sheeran, a noted pal of Swift’s. She has also collaborated with fellow indie-pop darlings like Sigrid and Maisie Peters.
The lowdown: Benson Boone seemed to arrive out of nowhere when his single “Beautiful Things” topped both of Billboard’s global charts in February. The surprise viral hit owes much of its success to TikTok, where Boone has 7 million followers.

However, the Washington native had been laying the groundwork for years, already having earned two entries on the Billboard Hot 100. Boone started out as a contestant on “American Idol” — where he was praised as a potential winner by none other than Katy Perry — but withdrew from the competition to avoid being pigeonholed in his career. In 2021, he caught the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds and signed to the rockstar’s own label, Night Street Records, in partnership with Warner Records. Shortly after, Boone made his chart debut with “Ghost Town” (No. 100). He made a second chart appearance in 2022 with his power ballad “In the Stars” (No. 59), which also became his first platinum-certified single in the US.