Taylor Swift Paid New York City $160K Fee for Star-Studded Wedding, Says Zohran Mamdani

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday said Taylor Swift has paid the city $160,000 for the permit required for police to have supervise her July 3 Madison Square Gardens wedding to Travis Kelce.

“Taylor Swift will be paying… has paid already the cost of the permit that was lodged, which was over $160,000 for that event and for the response to that event. And that was a permit that was finalized in the days just before the event itself,” Mamdani said in response to a question during a press conference unrelated to the wedding carried on C-SPAN.

The journalist followed up by asking him to clarify if that number is for the permit fee only or if it includes overtime costs for the NYPD, and Mamdani said it was for the permit fee, leaving open the possibility that there will be additional costs to the city.

The cost for the New York Police Department to work both the wedding and Thursday night’s rehearsal dinner had been estimated at roughly $160,000, and Mandani confirmed Swift had reimbursed the city for that bill. The mayor’s comments followed criticism over taxpayers having to pay for police security around the power couple’s nuptials in New York City.

Media reports pointed to the multi-day wedding event costing around $15 million, which included police security costs borne by taxpayers. The superstar singer-songwriter and her NFL tight end beau celebrated their marriage with around 1,000 celebrity guests at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan on July 3, which required street closures and crowd control by the New York City police.

Mamdani told reporters the special event application for the wedding event had been approved New York City’s permitting office only two days before the event itself, and that Swift had now covered the permit costs.

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