The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) was held on Aug. 28. After viewers voted online, fans were able to watch live performances from artists such as Bad Bunny, Black Pink and Eminen. However, it wasn’t the performers that made the VMAs worth watching, but rather the reappearance of Taylor Swift. 

Despite remaining out of the public eye for months, Swift appeared at the VMAs last week to accept her award for Video of the Year for the short film “All Too Well.” During her acceptance speech, she had some even more unexpected news to share with the audience. 

Swift revealed the release date of her upcoming album, Midnights, on Oct. 21. 

A “brand new album,” Midnights’ release came as a shock to many fans who were expecting a re-recorded album instead of new songs. In a later update on her Instagram account, Swift elaborated on the content of the new album.

Swift’s description of Midnights was nothing short of emotional, as she details sleepless nights dealing with internal problems. 

“This is a collection of music in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams,” Swift said. “[This is] for all of us who . . . go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve . . . we’ll meet ourselves.”

While the reveal was a surprise in and of itself, the release date happens to be Kim Kardashian’s birthday. While it is unconfirmed whether or not this decision was a simple coincidence, Kardashian has had a turbulent history with Taylor Swift. Stemming from Snapchat posts in 2016, Kardashian posted multiple videos of Kanye West mentioning Swift in his song “Famous,” which was unreleased at the time. While it seems unlikely that Swift intended for the release date to have a covert meaning, some fans speculate that Kardashian ties in with a larger feud between Swift and West.

One theory that seems more plausible, has to do with Swift’s use of the VMAs to announce her new album. During the 2009 VMAs, Kardashian’s ex-husband Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to shift attention to Beyoncé, another competitor for the Video of the Year award. After Swift released Reputation in 2017, fans believed that many of the songs in the album were about West and Kardashian. 

Swift was awarded the same award, 13 years later, at the same show. Though the VMAs may seem like a key similarity, the most astonishing fact to the theory is arguable that Midnight will contain 13 songs. Is this just a crazy fan theory, or does it hold significance? Only time will tell as we near midnight of Oct. 21.