Tickets to Taylor Swift’s record-setting Eras Tour may have cost fans an arm and a leg, but a professional wrestling great got a front-row seat for an incredibly personal performance by the pop star before she made it big.
Jeff Jarrett, a WWE Hall of Famer who currently serves as an executive with AEW, revealed that Swift once performed an impromptu, three-hour concert at his home in Hendersonville, Tenn. — where Swift spent her formative years — during a trying time for his family.
Jarrett shared the story during a recent interview with TMZ.
“It was Christmas of 2006, my first wife was really ill with breast cancer. She passed away about five months after this, so she was really ill,” Jarrett said.
A friend of Swift suggested that she visit the family, as the wrestler’s two daughters were fans of her music.
What initially was a small visit turned into a marathon performance by the future Grammy Award winner.
“She came over and didn’t bring her guitar in, but she actually ran back home that day because the girls wanted her to sing and play,” Jarrett said.
“It just started out with, you know, I don’t know, the girls, five, six, seven, people,” he said. “By the end of the afternoon, Taylor played about three hours and it ended up probably in our great room … There was probably 35, 40, 45 people at the end of it.”
Jarrett said that the day was special and that the singer and the family bonded tremendously through it, especially his daughters – and the connection continued to grow after his wife’s death.
“When my wife passed away, you know, Taylor stayed, hung around, and then was really good to the girls,” he said. “She came over and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to take the girls back to my house,’ and they would bake cookies.”
Jarrett also vouched for Swift’s baking skills, saying that she “can bake a mean chocolate chip cookie,” before joking that the singer’s new fiance, NFL superstar Travis Kelce, may put on a few pounds after he eventually retires.
The Jarrett family and Swift have remained close over the years, with one of the wrestler’s daughters, Jaclyn, being cast to play a younger version of Swift in the music video for her hit song Mine. He added that that he often crosses paths with Swift’s father, Scott, in their community.
Jarrett also extended an invite to Kelce, who got engaged to the singer last month after two years of dating, to step into the squared circle once his career with the Kansas City Chiefs wraps up.
“I would love for Kelce to step on into an AEW ring … The door will be open at AEW,” Jarrett said, while also issuing a playful warning: “I got a guitar shot for Travis.”