Episode #93 | 1.11.22

Taylor Swift: Interstate Stalking, Vanishing Masters, and Love Letters Gone Wrong

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In this episode

Taylor Swift has a list of stalkers longer than her stadium tour setlists. One drove over 900 miles to hand-deliver his “love” letters to her then-record-label, Big Machine Records. Others have showed up to her homes bearing rope, lock picks, and tools to break her windows. The threats on her life have become so persistent that her security team once installed facial recognition software at the venues she performed in, specifically to distinguish her stalkers from her fans. While making some of the most recognizable pop songs in music history, Taylor Swift also became one of the most recognizable women in the celebrity sphere -- a title that on many occasions has nearly cost her life.

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Sources

Taylor Swift: In Her Own Words

Miss Americana Documentary (Netflix)

Taylor Swift’s Stalker Deemed Mentally Unfit to Stand Trial (The Cut)

Colorado Man Arrested With Knife, Rope, Outside Taylor Swift’s Mansion (CBS Denver)

Taylor Swift: Man Breaks Into Home….Showers and Sleeps in her Bed (TMZ)

Taylor Swift’s Stalker Sentenced to up to 4 Years in Prison (Page Six)

Taylor Swift: Bank Robber Says Look What You Made Me Do (TMZ)

Taylor Swift Stalker Sentenced to Four Months in Prison (Forbes)

Taylor Swift: Stalker Threatens ‘I Want to Rape Her, I Will Kill Her (TMZ)

Court Paperwork for Eric Swarbrick (Courthouse News)

Eric Swarbrick Gets 30 Months in Prison for Stalking & Threatening Taylor Swift (UInterview)

Texas Man Pleads Guilty To Interstate Stalking And Threatening CEO Of Big Machine Label Group (Justice.Gov)

Taylor Swift Stalker Wanted By Metro Police; Restraining Order Filed, Read His Letters Here (Scoop Nashville)

Man Busted Outside Taylor Swift’s Home with Crowbar, Bat, and Dozens of Lock Picks (Page Six)

Another Stalker Was Arrested at Taylor Swift’s Tribeca Apartment, Police Say (The Cut)

How Taylor Swift Showed Us the Scary Future of Facial Recognition (The Guardian)

Taylor Swift: 30 Things I Learned Before 30 (Elle)

Taylor’s Open Letter About the American Music Awards (Post on personal Tumblr)

Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

 

Music

Hosted by Jake Brennan.

Written by Victoria Wasylak.

Copy editing by Pat Healy.

Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.

Score by Jake Brennan. 

Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.

*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak