Fans of pro wrestlers always want to believe that their favorites are good people as well as talented performers. That’s true of stars in other fields as well, and the more popular, the higher the hopes that celebrities aren’t jerks — and it’s hard to be any more popular right now than Taylor Swift.
The music superstar has somehow managed to be in the spotlight even more over the past few months thanks to her incredibly successful tour, record-setting Grammys night and relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce. It seems impossible she could keep her head screwed on straight through all of that, right?
Maybe she can. For anecdotal evidence, we turn in an unexpected direction: to the Facebook account of hardcore legend Mick Foley. While Foley says some of his children appreciate Swift’s music more than he does, he’s nevertheless “a Swiftie for life” for the kindness he saw from her in 2007, when Jeff Jarrett was dealing with his first wife’s ultimately unsuccessful battle against cancer.
Foley recalled that someone told him that “Taylor” helped out with Jarrett’s kids during a difficult time … then realized they were talking about Swift.
I’m not even sure who was involved in the conversation with Jeff that I overheard. I believe it was Jeremy Borash… I’m paraphrasing here, but the words were to the effect of “Taylor took the girls out for the day” and how important that time with her was to them. I was literally stunned to find out that the Taylor he had mentioned was Taylor Swift, who in 2007 was already well on her way to being a global superstar, with eponymous 2006 album, “Taylor Swift” several months into an astonishing 157 weeks on the #Billboard200 charts.
As touched as I was by this story, I thought it was a random act of kindness done on a one-time basis. But I came to understand that Taylor, who had become a neighbor of Jeff’s in Hendersonville, Tennessee and was a regular part of the girls lives as they grew up. She did not just take them out for that one day; she was there for them during the most difficult part of their lives. She baked cookies, she sang in their living room, she babysat while Jeff was at his wife’s bedside; she was a true friend and a shining example of kindness when kindness was needed most.
As Jeff himself put it in one of our texts, “Putting the girls in one of her videos (Jeff’s daughter, Jaclyn portrayed young Taylor in the 2010 video “Mine”) is the story most people know. Her spending quality time , baking cookies, talking, just being there, is what’s special. In the middle of her career exploding would have been “a reason” that she was too busy. That young lady is special.”
She truly is. I got tears in my eyes when I read that message from Jeff – and I’m grateful that he has allowed me to share it with all of you.
That’s exactly the kind of thing you want to hear about Swift or anyone on that level of fame. The fact that it has a pro wrestling connection is just the icing on the cake for us.