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Professional wrestler Jeff Jarrett has always been pretty vocal about his family’s seriously wholesome experience with Taylor Swift before she became the global superstar that she is today.
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The 58-year-old star previously revealed that Taylor helped his family during a “very, very dark period,” and was there for his young children after his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
For reference, Jeff married his high school sweetheart Jill Gregory in 1992, and they welcomed three daughters — Joslyn, Jaclyn, and Jerlyn — before Jill tragically died from breast cancer in May 2007.
The family got to know Taylor after she and her family moved to their hometown of Hendersonville, Tennessee, with Jeff saying that Taylor stood out in their “small community” due to her singing ambitions.
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And during an appearance on WREG last year, Jeff confirmed a longstanding rumor that Taylor used to babysit his kids, saying: “She’s a friend of the family. She was very good to my family during a very, very dark period.”
“My wife got sick, and she passed away,” he then explained. “But Taylor was like a big sister and came over and took the girls, baking cookies, and just kind of hung out at the house. I can’t say enough good things about Taylor.”
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“She’s such a sweetheart,” Jeff added. “I still call her ‘our girl.’”
He then clarified that it was never technically “babysitting” as Tay didn’t expect payment for the time she spent with Jeff and Jill’s girls.
And Jeff opened up some more during a recent interview with TMZ Sports, where he said that Taylor performed an impromptu and private three-hour-long concert for Jill and their daughters amid Jill’s fight with cancer.
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“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,” he shared in the video interview.
Taylor was just 17 years old at the time and in the very early stages of her record-breaking career, having just landed her first hit single with “Tim McGraw,” as well as critical acclaim for her self-titled debut album.
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Jeff explained that a friend of Taylor’s suggested she stop by and visit his family, adding: “Obviously, like every little girl in America, my daughters were big Taylor fans, and her songs had just kind of broke, but she was a hometown girl.”
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“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,” Jeff recalled, detailing that what started out as just seven people in Jeff’s home turned into 45 people once Taylor started performing.
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“By the end of the afternoon, Taylor played about three hours,” he revealed.
“We’d known her beforehand in the community,” Jeff went on. “But that was where I think she kind of bonded with the family, specifically with the girls.”
“When my wife passed away, Taylor would come around and was really good with the girls,” he reiterated, noting that Taylor would take the girls back to her home to bake cookies.
And Tay remained close with the family as her career took off, with Jeff’s daughter Jaclyn even appearing in the music video for the star’s 2010 single “Mine.”
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"Taylor, being as bold as she always is, just said, 'I want Jaclyn in the video,’” Jeff recalled to Instinct Culture in 2021, adding that the whole family headed to Maine for the production, which was a “good experience for the kids.”
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