Taylor Swift's "Patient Zero" Launches at No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100

Taylor Swift ’s “Patient Zero” bounds in at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 , becoming her 16th career leader.

The song stops the record reign of Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” which has run up an unprecedented 24 weeks atop the Hot 100 since February.

“Patient Zero” is one of four new songs on the deluxe version, released Sept. 25, of Swift’s 2025 album, The Life of a Showgirl , dubbed The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore . The set (all versions combined) surges back to No. 1 for a 13th week atop the Billboard 200 chart while its three other new tracks launch in the Hot 100’s top five: “Cleveland!,” “Babylon” and “Pink Clouding,” at Nos. 3, 4 and 5, respectively.

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Swift boasts the third-most No. 1s in the Hot 100’s history, trailing only The Beatles’ 20 and Mariah Carey’s 19.

“Patient Zero” is also Swift’s 10th career No. 1 Hot 100 debut — tying her with Drake for the most.

Now up to 74 career Hot 100 top 10s, Swift continues to have the most among women. She has the second-most overall, after Drake’s 90.

Meanwhile, The Life of a Showgirl now houses 14 Hot 100 top 10s, including its original and deluxe versions — breaking out of a tie for the most ever from an album.

Read on for details of the entire top 10 on this week’s Hot 100.

The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data, the lattermost metric reflecting purchases of physical singles and digital tracks from full-service digital music retailers; digital singles sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites are excluded from chart calculations. All charts dated Oct. 10, 2026, will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, Oct. 6. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram. Plus, for all chart rules and explanations, click here .

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard , data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/lists/taylor-swift-patient-zero-hot-100-number-one-debut/)._