How Ethel Kennedy inspired Taylor Swift’s song ‘Starlight’

Taylor Swift had a connection with Ethel Kennedy even before meeting the matriarch of the Kennedy family.

Ethel Kennedy, who was married to Robert F. Kennedy, died on Oct. 10 from complications related to a stroke she suffered last week, her grandson, Rep. Joe Kennedy III, wrote in a statement on X. She was 96.

The mother of 11 was the inspiration for Swift’s song “Starlight,” which is featured on Swift’s 2012 album “Red.” There’s also a “Starlight (Taylor’s Version)” from the 2021 re-recording, “Red (Taylor’s Version).”

Back in 2012, the pop star explained how a black-and-white photo of two people from decades ago inspired her to write the upbeat love song.

“I get a lot of style inspiration from the 1960s, so I’ll go and look at black and white pictures, and look at (photos from the) ‘50s and ‘60s,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “And I came across this picture of these two kids dancing at a dance. It immediately made me think of like how much fun they must have had that night. It was back in the late ‘40s.”

As Swift continued looking at the photograph, she learned more about the couple who were in the snap.

“I ended up reading underneath that it was Ethel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. And they were like 17 (Robert was born Nov. 20, 1925, Ethel on April 11, 1928),” she said. “So I just kind of wrote that song from that place, not really knowing how they met or anything like that. And then her daughter Rory ended up coming to a show a couple weeks later and I told her about the song and she was like, ‘You have to meet my mom. She would love to meet you.’ So that was kind of what that song was about.”Swift and Ethel Kennedy would meet and later pose together at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 20, 2012 in Park City, Utah.

That same year, Swift would go on to be romantically linked to a Kennedy. The singer dated Conor Kennedy, Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy’s grandson, in the summer of 2012.

The pair were photographed together on various occasions but remained tight-lipped about their relationship.

“I don’t talk about my personal life in great detail. I write about it in my songs, and I feel like you can share enough about your life in your music to let people know what you’re going through,” she told Glamour in 2012 when asked about her relationship with Conor Kennedy. Some fans have speculated that “Begin Again” is about her and Conor Kennedy’s romance.

The magazine also told Swift how Ethel Kennedy said she would “be so lucky” to have her as her granddaughter-in-law.

“She’s fantastic. I love her,” she replied.