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 December 30, 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.
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 Swift’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.”
