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An Unlikely Swiftie

Posted: Mar 4th 2024 By: Mick Foley

Hey, please welcome none other than Taylor Swift to #TheBloodline! I laughed so hard when I saw this meme and I hope that you enjoy it as well. But I’m going to use this fun little image as a way of explaining why I am a #Swiftie - despite not being what you might consider a huge fan in the traditional sense.

I do enjoy Taylor’s music. Don’t get me wrong. My two older kids love Taylor Swift, and her music is an indelible part of the soundtrack to so many of our lives - whether we realize it or not. I think she is a gifted songwriter, and an amazing performer. But in wrestle-speak, Taylor Swift is “over” with me for a completely different reason.

In 2007, my longtime friend Jeff Jarrett lost his wife, his high school sweetheart Jill to cancer. Jeff and I met in 1988 in his father’s Memphis based CWA promotion, or were almost the same age (Jeff was 21 at the time and I was 23) ended up working together regularly together for over 20 years - in CWA, World Class, WWE and TNA. He is a fellow WWE Hall of Fame member, and a good friend to this day. We even shared a few texts earlier today, as I wanted his approval before I wrote about some thing as personal as Jill’s passing.

So, how does any of this involve Taylor Swift? Well, my thoughts of Jeff Jarrett and Taylor Swift are indelibly linked, as it was at this incredibly difficult time in Jeff’s life, just after the passing of his wife, that I heard Jeff say something that has obviously stuck with me to this day. 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. Maybe this story might even make some of the haters out there to consider directing their hate in some other direction - or maybe rid themselves of that hatred altogether... I do not own a Taylor Swift CD, I have never seen her perform live, and honestly - even given how ubiquitous her music is in our lives - might not be able to give you the name of 10 Taylor Swift songs of my life depended on it. But I love Taylor Swift - and in my own way, am a Swiftie for life.