A digital marketing agency has released a list of the worst celebrity offenders when it comes to private jet use, with Taylor Swift's plane topping the list. Yard released the list on Friday, using data from a Twitter account that shares the movements of planes owned by celebrities.
The account – run by, you guessed it, the teen who kept track of Elon Musk's jet movements despite being offered money by the SpaceX CEO to take it down – posts publicly-available flight data, along with additional information on CO2 emissions.
The account has highlighted a number of short flights taken by planes belonging to celebrities (whether the celebs themselves were in them or not) plus the absurdly high carbon footprint of the journeys. For instance, Kylie Jenner's jet took a 13-minute flight today, at a cost of 1 ton of CO2 emissions.
Topping the list of worst offenders, according to Yard, was Taylor Swift's jet.
"Racking up a total of 170 flights since January, Taylor's jet has amassed a vast 22,923 minutes in the air – 15.9 days," Yard wrote in a press release.
"Her total flight emissions for the year come in at 8,293.54 tonnes, or 1,184.8 times more than the average person's total annual emissions. Taylor’s shortest recorded flight of 2022 was just 36 minutes, flying from Missouri to Nashville."
"Taylor's jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals," a spokesperson for Swift told E! News, somewhat missing the thrust of the issue – private jet use by individuals during the climate crisis. "To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect."
Drake, who was criticized after it was revealed that his jet took a 14-minute flight, responded in a similar manner. He defended his jet's movement on the grounds that the flight was empty.
"This is just them moving planes to whatever airport they are being stored at for anyone who was interested in the logistics," he wrote on Instagram. "Nobody takes that flight."
Yard put together a "top 10 celebrity CO2 offenders" in terms of their jets' flights and CO2 footprints this year. As you read it, bear in mind the average American footprint is 16 tons per year, while the global average is about 4 tons.
10) Travis Scott: 3033.3 tonnes
9) Oprah Winfrey: 3,493.17 tonnes
8) Mark Wahlberg: 3772.85 tonnes
7) Kim Kardashian: 4268.5 tonnes
6) Steven Spielberg: 4,465 tonnes
5) Blake Shelton: 4495 tonnes
4) A-Rod: 5,342.7 tonnes
3) Jay-Z: 6,981.3 tonnes
2) Floyd Mayweather - 7,076.8 tonnes
1) Taylor Swift: 8,293.54 tonnes
Floyd Mayweather's jet had the honor of taking the shortest flight on the list, at just 10 minutes, releasing 10 tons of CO2.