If you’re looking to achieve peak Swiftie status, then you need to make sure your Taylor Swift knowledge bank includes info about her origins era—specifically, about the two humans who joined forces (and DNA) to create the living icon. Those two humans are, of course, Taylor’s parents, Scott and Andrea Swift, and if you’re looking for a primer on the most need-to-know intel about them, you’ve come to exactly the right place. Scroll down for everything true fans have to know when it comes to all the most vital facts about Taylor Swift’s parents.
Taylor Swift’s parents got married in Houston, Texas.
Scott and Andrea Swift’s love story started in Houston, Texas (which also happens to be where Andrea is from), where they tied the knot on February 20, 1988. Taylor referenced the important role Houston played in her family’s history while giving her parents a shout-out during her Eras Tour show in the city in April 2023.
“I love you, Houston,” Tay told the crowd in a speech that was shared all over TikTok. “You treat us like Houston is my mom’s hometown, which it is. You treat us like this is where my parents got married, which it is.”
On December 13, 1989 (aka roughly nine months after the couple would have been celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary—we see you, Scott + Andrea 😏), Taylor was born, and a little more than two years later, the fourth member of the Swift fam, Taylor’s younger brother Austin, was born on March 11, 1992.
But they relocated to Pennsylvania to start their family/own a Christmas tree farm.
One of the most “omg, that’s almost too adorable/on brand to be true” details in Taylor Swift’s bio is the fact that she spent her early years being raised on a literal Christmas tree farm. After tying the knot in Texas, Scott and Andrea settled in Reading, Pennsylvania, where they purchased the 11-acre Pine Ridge Farm (“pine” as in Christmas trees, of course) and raised Taylor and Austin for several years before the family ultimately moved to the Nashville area to support Taylor’s country music dreams.
Meaning: this instant holiday classic is actually biographical.
Taylor Swift’s parents relocated the family to the Nashville area when she was 14.
In 2003, when Taylor was 14, Scott and Andrea decided to move the family to Nashville to help their daughter pursue her music career after she signed a deal with Sony/ATV Publishing (becoming the youngest person ever to do so—NBD).
Instead of moving to the city of Nashville, however, Scott and Andrea opted to buy a home in Hendersonville, a suburb about 20 miles outside of Nashville, to help minimize any pressure Taylor might feel about the move.
“I never wanted to make that move about her ‘making it,’” Andrea explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2008. “Because what a horrible thing if it hadn’t happened, for her to carry that kind of guilt or pressure around. And we moved far enough outside Nashville to where she didn’t have to be going to school with producers’ kids and label presidents’ kids and be reminded constantly that she was struggling to make it. We’ve always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true.”
Of course, Taylor one hundred percent knew what was behind the move anyway (not that “making it” turned out to be an issue, of course).
“I knew I was the reason they were moving,” Taylor eventually told Self (per E! Online). “But they tried to put no pressure on me. They were like, ‘Well, we need a change of scenery anyway’ and ‘I love how friendly the people in Tennessee are.’”
Taylor’s parents both worked in finance.
Before they were full-time supportive parents to one of the world’s biggest pop stars, Scott and Andrea Swift both worked in finance, Scott as a stockbroker (and later as a vice president for Merrill Lynch) and Andrea as a marketing manager at an advertising agency.
And for the record, both of Taylor’s parents have been able to put their professional skills to work helping her with her career over the years. While Scott has been shown to play a key role in her business management team (see: his appearance in her documentary Miss Americana), Andrea’s marketing skills were especially helpful during the early days of Taylor’s career, back when there were still people who weren’t fully aware of her yet.
“The parents already had her Myspace and her website up and running,” Taylor’s manager Rick Barker said in 2008. “The mom and dad both have great marketing minds. I don’t want to say fake it until you make it, but when you looked at her stuff, it was very professional even before she got her deal.”
Both her parents have battled cancer.
Over the years, both Scott and Andrea Swift have faced health issues. In 2015, Taylor opened up about her mother’s first cancer diagnosis in an emotional Tumblr post, writing:
Hey guys,
I’m writing to you with an update I wish I wasn’t giving you, but it’s important and I’m used to sharing important events in my life with you. Usually when things happen to me, I process them and then write music about how I feel, and you hear it much later. This is something my family and I thought you should know about now.
For Christmas this year, I asked my mom that one of her gifts to me be her going to the doctor to get screened for any health issues, just to ease some worries of mine. She agreed and went in to get checked. There were no red flags and she felt perfectly fine, but she did it just to get me and my brother off her case about it.
The results came in, and I’m saddened to tell you that my mom has been diagnosed with cancer. I’d like to keep the details of her condition and treatment plans private, but she wanted you to know.
She wanted you to know because your parents may be too busy juggling everything they’ve got going on to go to the doctor, and maybe you reminding them to go get checked for cancer could possibly lead to an early diagnosis and an easier battle. Or peace of mind in knowing that they’re healthy and there’s nothing to worry about. She wanted you to know why she may not be at as many shows this tour. She’s got an important battle to fight.
Thank you for caring about my family so much that she would want me to share this information with you. I hope and pray that you never get news like this.
Love you.
Taylor
In a 2019 essay for Elle, Taylor revealed that Andrea’s cancer had returned and that her father, Scott, had also battled cancer (although she didn’t share any further details about his health issues), writing simply that “both of my parents have had cancer.” That year, Taylor also revealed that while treating her cancer, Andrea’s doctors discovered she also had a brain tumor, telling Variety:
Everyone loves their mom; everyone’s got an important mom. But for me, she’s really the guiding force. Almost every decision I make, I talk to her about it first. So obviously it was a really big deal to ever speak about her illness.
She was going through chemo, and that’s a hard enough thing for a person to go through.
While she was going through treatment, they found a brain tumor. And the symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before. So it’s just been a really hard time for us as a family.
Taylor opened up about the impact Andrea’s cancer journeys have had on her in the song “Soon You’ll Get Better” from Lover.
Taylor has incredible bonds with both of her parents.
Taylor’s bond with both of her parents is well documented. She famously penned the song “The Best Day,” from her sophomore album, Fearless, about her close friendship with her mom. In a 2011 interview, she even revealed that she recorded the song in secret and played it for her mom for the first time as a Christmas gift.
“‘The Best Day’ is a song that I wrote without telling my mom,” Taylor explained. “I wrote it in the summertime, and I recorded it secretly too. I had this idea that I wanted to play it for her for Christmas. So when I got the track, I synced up all of these home videos from when I was a little kid to go along with the song like a music video and played it for her on Christmas Eve, and she was crying her eyes out.”
Fans got a taste of what that video might have been like when Taylor rerecorded the song for Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and included vintage pics and videos from her childhood in the official lyric video:
Scott loves Tay and her fans so much that he's known to give out guitar picks in the crowd of her concerts—including, but not limited to Travis Kelce and Billie Eilish's brother, Finneas. "These are my Taylor Swift ‘Lover’ guitar picks," he said during a live stream. "Taylor Swift’s Dad gave them to me backstage one time. He was an incredibly nice man."
And fans got a look at the v cute father-daughter relationship between Scott and Taylor in March 2023, when she shared pics on Instagram of the DIY all-access pass she made for him as the “Dad of Headliner” on the Eras Tour:
