What Real Life Showgirls Think About Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl

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Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, celebrates the exciting and vibrant world of showgirls.

As she sings in the album’s closing track, “The Life of a Showgirl,” sequins truly are forever. And honestly, watching this billionaire pop star perform, it’s impossible not to think she *lives* the line, “I’m making money being pretty and witty.” It’s a statement that feels less like a lyric and more like a personal motto, and she absolutely embodies it.

TIME spoke with showgirls who have performed in Las Vegas, which has long been known as the center of showgirl performances in the U.S., to get their thoughts on how accurately the album portrays their lives and what being a showgirl is actually like.

Origins of showgirls

The history of showgirls goes all the way back to Paris in the 1870s. As Jane Merrill, author of The Showgirl Costume: An Illustrated History, explains, “Following the Prussian invasion of Paris, the French people were feeling down. France regained its spirit and boosted its economy by prioritizing entertainment. The French became leaders in the production of cosmetics and fragrances, artificial flowers, sequins, fake pearls, feathers, plumed headdresses, rhinestones, and cinema, among other things.”

The Lido de Paris was a very well-known show, featuring performers known as showgirls. In 1958, American producer Donn Arden brought this style of show to Las Vegas. According to Su Kim Chung, a showgirl history expert at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a key difference between showgirls and other dancers at the time was that “showgirls were always topless.” Unlike many dancers, showgirls didn’t always have formal dance training. They were celebrated for their elaborate costumes and headdresses, and for their ability to move gracefully across the stage. Typically, showgirls were required to be taller than 5’8” to handle the heavier costumes they wore.

Traditional showgirl shows are no longer performed in Las Vegas, mainly because they are very costly to produce. This includes paying numerous dancers and creating elaborate costumes from luxurious materials like ostrich feathers. Jubilee!, known for its costumes designed by Bob Mackie, held the record for the longest-running show in Las Vegas before it ended in 2016. The sparkling silver outfit Taylor Swift wears on the cover of her album The Life of a Showgirl seems to have taken inspiration from the costumes worn by the Jubilee! showgirls.

Today, when people see a showgirl in Las Vegas, it’s typically a woman wearing an old-fashioned outfit and posing for pictures on the Strip. According to Chung, the term “showgirl” is now used to describe any attractive dancer wearing things like feathers, fishnet stockings, or bikinis and bodysuits covered in rhinestones.

Merrill points out that traditionally, showgirl performances haven’t been led by a well-known dancer like Swift, explaining, “Swift’s primary image is that of a superstar, not just a performer in an ensemble, which distinguishes her from most showgirls.”

Showgirls on the life of a showgirl

Nancy Hardy, a showgirl since 1977 who now performs in Elvis-themed weddings, remembers a lively and fun atmosphere behind the scenes. Between performances, the showgirls would relax in Hardy’s dressing room, smoking and enjoying screwdrivers. Lou Anne Chessik, who worked as a showgirl from 1979 to 1991, explains that she and her colleagues chose this career because they didn’t quite fit the mold of traditional ballerinas. Their height proved useful, helping them balance while wearing elaborate costumes constructed from materials like metals, furs, rare bird feathers, and Swarovski crystals. “We didn’t hesitate to walk up and down three flights of stairs onstage in those heavy outfits-there were no handrails!” she recalls. “I suppose that’s what being young is all about.” Adding to the challenge, many showgirls also wore three-inch high heels while performing.

It wasn’t always glamorous, though. The work was incredibly demanding. Andrea Avruskin, a physical therapist who also performs as a showgirl for events, recalls having to do 12 shows in a single week and earning just $50 for each one. A lot of the other showgirls she worked with also held down other jobs – as nurses, teachers, and X-ray technicians, for example.

Diane Christiansen, who wrote The Last Real Showgirl: My Sequined ’70s Onstage, remembers a time when she worked constantly – seven nights a week, performing two shows each night, and even three shows on Saturdays, with no days off. She felt intense pressure to maintain her physique, and recalls a producer sending her to a doctor in the Bahamas for diet pills. She took them for a couple of months, but said, “I did that for a couple months and thought I was going to lose my mind.”

Showgirls baring all

Hardy recalls that performing topless typically meant wearing a rhinestone underwire bra just below the breasts, along with a rhinestone necklace that provided some coverage, “but your breasts were completely exposed.”

According to Avruskin, dancers in topless shows generally avoid movements that emphasize breast motion or high kicks. In contrast, dancers with more coverage are able to perform more physically demanding choreography. She explains, “We’re taught to not be sexy. You can be alluring, but there’s no jiggling or grinding or anything that could be considered lewd or raunchy.” She points out that while some Las Vegas shows feature provocative dancing-bumping and grinding on stages or poles-showgirls traditionally present a very different style: “It was very elegant…that was very empowering.”

The fact that showgirls performed topless didn’t mean they were trying to attract the attention of people in the audience. “We weren’t pressured to flirt with the audience after the show at all,” explains Avruskin. “We were actually told to stay behind the scenes and maintain an air of mystery – to be goddesses on stage who didn’t interact with the public.” She remembers a former stage manager, Fluff LeCoque, advising the showgirls that if they presented themselves as elegant and classy, “men would fantasize about us and women would want to be us.”

Why Las Vegas showgirl productions fell out of style

Besides being quite costly, a lot of the performances featured songs taken from classic films and movie musicals.

Hardy believes a key reason some shows have ended is their failure to evolve with musical trends. He suggests they may have felt stale as audience preferences shifted, and that their once-impressive special effects started to appear old-fashioned, despite being fantastic when the shows originally debuted. “Maybe they seemed a little more tired because people’s tastes changed and also the special effects began to seem kind of quaint and dated, even though they were fabulous when the show first opened.”

Christiansen argues that the shows didn’t keep up with changing social mores.

Things were very different in the past. Many of the people in charge of our shows treated us like objects, and we often didn’t even recognize it at the time. We lacked the awareness we have today. I think a big reason why those kinds of shows aren’t around anymore is due to the rise of feminism. Women have evolved, and they no longer feel pressured to expose themselves. If people want to see that kind of performance now, they can go to burlesque shows.”

What showgirls think of The Life of a Showgirl

According to professional showgirls interviewed by TIME, Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl accurately portrays the hard work and passion involved in their profession, the joy of performing, and the demanding yet dazzling lifestyle they lead.

In the song “The Life of a Showgirl,” the phrases “married to the hustle” and “I’ll never know another” brought to mind a common belief among showgirls: “lips and lashes for life.” Avruskin explains that the line “Pain hidden by the lipstick and lace” perfectly describes the hard work and dedication that goes into performing.

However, Swift also acknowledges the highly competitive nature of the entertainment world, expressing this in lyrics like “I’d sell my soul to have a taste of a magnificent life” and “But that’s not what showgirls get. They leave us for dead.” Avruskin explains, “Showgirls appear to lead glamorous lives while performing, creating a captivating illusion that fulfills the audience’s desires. But, like all aspects of the entertainment industry, no one’s position is secure, and everyone can be replaced.”

Hardy explained that a line in the song “Opalite” – about “dancing through the lightning strikes” – captures the album’s overall theme of exploring the tough realities of being a showgirl. She noted, “I initially envisioned songs about glamorous elements like high heels, tights, rhinestones, eyelashes, and feathers, and the excitement of partying…but that theatricality is woven together with themes of loyalty, sadness, optimism, and deception – real-life experiences.”

Christiansen, on the other hand, didn’t think the album delved deep enough into the showgirl lifestyle. “It’s as if the iconic costumes of the showgirl were worn at her ‘dress up’ party with beloved friends to salute that arrival as opposed to entering the world of real showgirls themselves,” she argues. “As much as I relate to her growth in an industry that is taxing to a young woman’s evolution as a whole and complete person, the literal journey of a showgirl is not represented.”

Hardy shared that the song “Elizabeth Taylor” resonated with her, particularly the lines, “oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me” and “hidden by the lipstick and lace.” She explained that as performers, showgirls often feel anonymous and unrecognizable while on stage, essentially ‘hidden’ from who they truly are. She admitted she only felt beautiful when surrounded by makeup, lights, and rhinestones-it was all an illusion. Performing in a Las Vegas show allowed her to escape a normal, rather un-glamorous life. For a brief period, she could enjoy the feeling of being powerful and beautiful. On stage, she felt unattainable, and that provided a sense of safety.

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2025-10-04 00:07