Long before Taylor Swift was selling out stadiums, two “Swifties” were sitting in the stands: parents Scott and Andrea Swift.
The mom and dad of the international pop sensation believed in their daughter’s talents from Day 1 and moved their entire family to Nashville more than two decades ago to help her chase her singing and songwriting dreams.
The “Life of a Showgirl” singer has often spoken about how her family’s love has guided her, and she’s thanked them for the sacrifices they’ve made for her career.
After winning top new female vocalist at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards, Taylor Swift said, “There are so many people that deserve to be thanked for this,” but she dedicated her acceptance speech to just one: her mom.
“And that’s the person that used to love to go to lunch with her friends and cook dinner for her family and sleep in her bed every night, and she gave that all away and left it all behind to go on the road with her 16-year-old daughter,” Taylor Swift said during the speech, in part. “And so, Mom, thank you so much. I love you. This is for you.”
As Taylor Swift’s success as a crossover artist took on a life of its own, her parents have continued to support her along the way. Scott Swift, 74, and Andrea Swift, 68, have been spotted singing along at their daughter’s concerts, interacting with her devoted fan base and, as of the past couple years, attending NFL games to support Taylor Swift’s beau, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
While Taylor Swift’s career has evolved, her love for her family remains consistent. Read on to learn more about Taylor Swift’s parents — her first and strongest supporters.
Who Are Scott and Andrea Swift?
Andrea and Scott Swift tied the knot in 1988, about a year before welcoming their daughter on Dec. 13, 1989. The date is significant to many Swifties as 13 is the singer’s iconic lucky number, and she named her fifth studio album “1989.”
The couple welcomed Taylor Swift’s younger brother, Austin Swift, in 1992.
Taylor Swift isn’t the first musician in Andrea Swift’s bloodline. Andrea Swift is the daughter of American opera singer Marjorie Finaly, who Taylor Swift frequently references, including in her song “Marjorie” on her “Evermore” album.
Andrea Swift also spent some time growing up in Singapore due to her mother’s career, Taylor Swift revealed during her March 2024 “Eras Tour” show in Singapore.
“A lot of the time when we’d come here on tour, my mom would take me and drive me past her old house, where she used to go to school. So, I’ve been hearing about Singapore my whole life,” she said during the show.
Known affectionately to many Swifties as “Mama Swift,” Andrea Swift is frequently seen by her daughter’s side at concerts, award shows and other events, where she is often friendly with fans.
The pop star’s relationship with her mom is shown in a heartwarming compilation of images and videos from her childhood in the official video for her song “The Best Day (Taylor’s Version).”
“You’re the prettiest lady in the whole wide world,” she sings on the song. “I love you for giving me your eyes.”
In the song, Taylor Swift also mentions her love for her father.
“I have an excellent father,” she sings. “His strength is making me stronger.”
Scott Swift has worked as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch and later established Swift Group. Though he’s clearly got a head for business, the proud dad also likes to let loose, as evidenced in a playful TikTok video of him riding a Segway that his daughter posted during her “Eras Tour.”
They Moved From Pennsylvania to Tennessee
Taylor Swift shared another compilation of family images and videos in her official video for the 2019 holiday tune “Christmas Tree Farm.”
Taylor Swift alludes in the song to the Christmas tree farm where she was raised.
The singer and her brother were both born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and in 2003, their parents moved the whole family to Nashville to support Swift’s singing career.
“At 13, I was offered a development deal by a major record label,” Taylor Swift told Time in 2014.
“My parents gave in and we moved from Pennsylvania (to Nashville),” she added.
After Taylor Swift announced the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” in Nashville during “The Eras Tour,” she reflected on how she felt when first writing the album between the ages of 18 and 20 while living in the nostalgia-filled city.
“The songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness,” she wrote.
At the reception for her induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June 2026, Taylor Swift thanked her parents and brother once again for their early leap of faith: “It was easy to choose songwriting over everything else in my life, but it couldn’t have been easy for my parents and my brother to just pick up and move our entire family from Pennsylvania to relocate to Nashville so that I could hone my craft in the songwriting capital of the world.”
Through tears, she added, “Even though words are supposed to kind of be my thing, I will never be able to express my gratitude to you guys for doing that for me. You’re the reason I’m here today.”
Scott and Andrea Swift’s Cancer Journeys
Both Andrea and Scott Swift have been diagnosed with cancer in the past, Taylor Swift revealed in a 2019 essay for Elle.
“I’ve had to learn how to handle serious illness in my family,” she wrote. “Both of my parents have had cancer, and my mom is now fighting her battle with it again.”
Taylor Swift revealed that her mother was battling cancer in 2015, then again in 2019, though she did not share the type of the cancer at the time.
The singer has shared her distress over her mom’s diagnosis through her music.
“Who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there’s no you,” she sang in her 2019 track “Soon You’ll Get Better.”
“You’ll get better soon, ‘cause you have to,” she sang.
In a 2019 interview with CBS News, she said she “can’t even listen to” the song.
“I don’t think I have written a song quite like that before,” she said. “It’s just not something we deal with until we have to. Writing about it was really emotional.”
She performed the song live for the first time in August 2019.
In 2020, Taylor shared that her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
She told Variety that her mother was diagnosed with the tumor while undergoing chemotherapy treatments for cancer.
Scott Swift Almost Inspired Taylor Swift to Pursue a Different Career
When Taylor Swift was only 8 years old, she didn’t know she was destined for music stardom. Instead, she thought she’d go a much more corporate route, she revealed during a 2011 “YouTube Presents” interview.
“Ever since I was, like, 8 years old, my dad has been telling me to save my money or invest in utilities,” then-21-year-old Taylor Swift said. “My dad is so passionate about what he does in the way that I’m so passionate about music. This guy lives for being a stockbroker.”
So, when people would ask young Taylor Swift what she wanted to be when she grew up, her answer was paternally inspired: “I didn’t know what a stockbroker was when I was 8, but I would just tell everybody that’s what I was going to be. It would be, like [the] first day of school, and they’re like, ‘So what do you want to be when you grow up?’ And everybody is [like], ‘I want to be an astronaut’ or ‘I want to be a ballerina.’ And I’m like, ‘I want to be a financial advisor.’”
While crunching numbers doesn’t typically excite an elementary school student, her dad’s love for his work made it appealing, the singer explained.
“I love my dad so much, because he’s so gung-ho for his job, and I just thought how happy it made him, and I just thought, ‘I can broke stocks,’” Taylor Swift said.
Scott Swift’s Political Disagreements With His Daughter
The 2020 Netflix documentary “Miss Americana” showed Taylor Swift and her father having political disagreements.
Taylor Swift decided to voice her political opinions on social media, a choice her father didn’t agree with at the time. In 2018, she released a lengthy statement on Instagram.
She said she does not support Marsha Blackburn running for Senate in the state of Tennessee, saying she “votes against equal pay for women,” and the “Violence Against Women Act.”
“These are not MY Tennessee values,” she wrote.
The documentary shows her father saying he was “terrified” about Taylor Swift sharing her political views.
Taylor Swift went through with the post.
“I need to do this,” she told her father. “Dad, I need you to forgive me for doing this, because I’m doing it.”
Andrea and Scott Swift at ‘The Eras Tour’
From day one to today, the star’s parents have publicly supported her career.
On the North American leg of “The Eras Tour,” Andrea and Scott Swift attended many of the shows.
One TikTok user posted a video in May 2023 which shows the two at her show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Andrea and Scott Swift are seen in the video walking into the venue together while fans gift them friendship bracelets — a tradition created during the “Eras Tour.”
Another TikTok video, posted in July 2023, shows the two inside the VIP tent at their daughter’s show in Seattle, Washington.
Both Andrea and Scott Swift are seen singing along as their daughter performs her track “You Belong With Me.” At one point, Scott Swift takes out his phone to record his daughter’s performance.
At multiple “Eras Tour” shows, Scott Swift —a longstanding NFL fan — was also seen in the crowd accompanied by Travis Kelce, including at the Nov. 11, 2023, show in Argentina and the Feb. 23, 2024, concert in Sydney, Australia.
Taylor Swift’s Parents Have Joined Her at Multiple Kansas City Chiefs Games
The singer’s parents have both been spotted at plenty of Chiefs games, including at the team’s Nov. 29, 2024, Black Friday game. Scott Swift was photographed arriving at Arrowhead Stadium with his daughter, as well as Kelce’s mom, Donna.
After the team defeated the San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl in February 2024, Taylor Swift posted a funny TikTok of her parents celebrating the win at an after party.
“Accidentally going clubbing with your parents is something everyone should try at least once in their life,” she captioned the post.
The singer also brought her parents and brother along to watch the Chiefs claim victory over the the Buffalo Bills in the 2025 AFC championship, which advanced Kansas City its third Super Bowl in a row.
Scott Swift Underwent Major Open Heart Surgery
During her feature on Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast in August 2025, Taylor Swift revealed that her dad underwent a surprise quintuple bypass surgery after a stress test uncovered serious blockages.
The singer said the surgery — which involves creating new routes, or “bypasses,” for blood and oxygen to reach the heart, per the National Library of Medicine — came as a shock, as her father had shown no signs of trouble during previous EKG exams.
Scott Swift insisted that his kids don’t take time out of their busy lives to attend to him, and even humorously compared his ability to heal alone to that of a cat.
“He said something about like when a cat is injured it curls up around a tree and heals itself, I was like ‘Dad, cats don’t have quintuple bypass surgery,’” Taylor Swift said.
But despite his wishes, Andrea, Taylor and Austin Swift were all in the waiting room alongside Scott Swift’s best friend when he woke up from surgery, Taylor Swift said.
She described the entire situation as “parent-child reversal” — from confiscating his phone so he would rest to assembling his wheelchair and other recovery aids, just like he assembled her play sets and swing sets.
That same summer, Andrea Swift also had knee surgery, Taylor Swift added during the podcast.
“This was just like the summer of my parental upgrades,” she joked.
The following December, Taylor Swift donated $1 million to the American Heart Association, supporting a cause that had gained new meaning for the family.
Andrea Swift Encouraged Taylor Swift to Give Travis Kelce a Chance
After Kelce expressed his interest in meeting Taylor Swift during a July 2023 episode of his New Heights podcast, Andrea Swift was interested in learning more about the athlete, she recalled during Episode 4 of Taylor Swift’s “The End of An Era” docuseries on Disney+.
So, Andrea Swift did some digging, and she contacted her “resident expert on [the] Kansas City Chiefs”: her cousin Robin.
Robin told her that Kelce is “the nicest guy” and “really loves his mom,” Andrea recalled. “And I went, ding, ding, ding, ding. Then I said, ‘Now how in the world am I going to get her to meet him?’”
After some light persuasion, battling against the pop star’s initial resistance to dating athletes, the efforts paid off.
“Listen, it was so earnest. I thought it was the sweetest thing in the world that he came to your show. He brought you something from your world. To me, that really said a lot,” Andrea Swift said.
She shared further adoration for her daughter’s then-boyfriend during the doc: “He really is one of the happiest people I think I’ve ever met, which I adore. He just brought a lot of happiness, which is I think what he does in a lot of his circles. He brings a lot of happiness to the world.”
Andrea Swift Played a Key Role Helping Taylor Swift Buy Her Music
During her “New Heights” appearance, Taylor Swift also recalled how she entrusted her mother and brother to facilitate the deal with private equity firm Shamrock Capitol to buy her music catalogue.
“They sat down with Shamrock Capital and told them what this meant to me,” Taylor Swift said. “They told them the whole story of all the times we’ve tried to buy it, of all the times it’s fallen through, all the times we had gotten plans together and figured out something we thought was gonna work and it didn’t at the last minute.”
When Taylor Swift finally got the call from her mother confirming that she and Austin Swift had secured the deal, the singer said she burst into tears.