The “Folklore” singer’s parents were listening to her sing karaoke and driving her to local gigs near her hometown of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, long before she was a Grammy-winning superstar and the world’s highest-paid female entertainer. Since her birth, Scott and Andrea Swift have been their daughter’s biggest fans, nurturing her talent and passion while attempting to keep the pressures of fame off of her.
“There would always be an escape hatch into normal life if she decided this wasn’t something she had to pursue,” Andrea explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2008. “And of course that’s like saying to her, ‘If you want to stop breathing, that’s cool.”” Andrea, a former advertising agency marketing manager, married Scott, a Merrill Lynch stockbroker-turned-vice-president, on February 20, 1988, in Harris County, Texas. Taylor was born on December 13, 1989. Taylor became a big sister just over two years later, on March 11, 1992, when her brother Austin was born.
The two siblings grew up on a 15-acre Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania before moving to the Nashville suburbs after the “Teardrops on My Guitar” singer landed her first major record deal with Sony at the age of 14.
Taylor made her Grand Ole Opry debut as a rising country star in September 2006, just a few years after taking that leap of faith. As her career took off, Andrea began to accompany her on the road, while Scott stayed at home with Austin.
Taylor’s chart-topping success brought her to the Grammys in 2010, where she won four awards and became the youngest artist ever to win album of the year for 2008’s Fearless. In her acceptance speech, she thanked both of her parents for their support and dedicated the award to her father. “This is for all those times that you said I could do whatever I wanted in life,” she went on to say. “And my mom, you’re my best friend.”
