Kelsey (L) and Danielle (R) finally meeting their idol, Taylor Swift (Picture: Supplied)
Welcome to Soul Mates, Metro.co.uk’s weekly friendship series, where friends share the stories of how they met.
From the moment Kelsey Barnes heard Teardrops On My Guitar by Taylor Swift, she knew she was hooked.
At 15, she soon became a devoted Swiftie, and made friends both online, and in real life, through the fandom.
So when the singer announced her first headline tour, nothing was going to keep her away.
Kelsey, now 30, from Toronto, Canada, says: ‘I was so excited. I was going with my best friend at the time, Claire*, who I’d met on Twitter, because we both loved Taylor. We spent weeks planning our outfits, and the cat-themed gifts we were going to bring her, in the hope that somehow, we might be able to get them to her.’
The girls’ thought meeting their icon at the May 2010 show was a pipe dream, but when they arrived at the concert, they couldn’t believe their luck.
‘Claire and I were sat in single seats, a few rows away from each, but it turned out that Claire was seated right in front of the sound booth where Taylor’s mum stood during the show.
‘Claire texted me to say that she’d handed her our gifts – I was just so happy that Taylor would know that I existed.’
Kelsey spent the next few hours on a high, singing and dancing along to Taylor. At the end of the show, she waited in a pre-agreed meet up point for Claire.
Fans of the singer will know that Taylor’s mum, Andrea, often goes out into the crowd, and invites selected fans to meet and greets after the show. For each tour, these VIP hangouts have a different name – for her Fearless Tour, it was named the T Party.
‘As the arena emptied, there was no sign of Claire,’ says Kelsey. ‘Someone I also knew of online came up to me and asked me what I was doing. When I told them I was waiting for Claire, they explained that Taylor’s mum had offered her two spots to T Party as a thank you for the gifts we’d brought – but she’d chosen to take someone else.
The girls all dressed up for the Eras Tour this year (Picture: Supplied)
‘I couldn’t believe it. Naturally, being an overly emotional 17-year-old and not being given the chance to meet my favourite singer, I was distraught. It sounds so dramatic now, but I was frantic, shaking and crying my eyes out.
‘I was deeply hurt that a friend I was close to would do that to me. As I was waiting for the train home, I sat on the floor of the station, silently weeping alone.’
They’ve been to many concerts together since they first met (Picture: Supplied)
But it was then when a group of girls’ approached the crying Kelsey.
‘I noticed a bunch of people run by me and then I felt the presence of someone standing above me. A girl about my age was asking “Are you okay?”. She told her friends to wait as she checked in on me.
‘I immediately recognised Danielle from her Twitter profile picture. I vaguely knew of her through the online Swiftie fandom – we both loved a lot of the same music, so had attended similar concerts and events over the years, but we’d never actually met.
‘She heard from someone else about what happened and was clearly upset for me. We spoke a bit and then parted ways, her back to her friends and me back home.’
Taylor was playing a run of shows in Toronto that year, and the next night, while at home, Kelsey got a call from an unknown number.
They love brunching and travelling together (Picture: Supplied)
‘It was Danielle,’ explains Kelsey. ‘She had been given pit tickets (an invite-only area in the crowd closer to the stage) to the show that night from Taylor’s publicist. She wanted to invite me along with her friends to make up for what happened the night before.’
Danielle and a group of friends had all got matching Taylor tattoos – some of the first fans ever to do so. This had caught the attention of the publicist, who’d offered the tickets.
‘It was so nice of her to invite me, and of course, I burst into tears. I literally had to race out of the door to make the show in time.’
The show was a bonding moment for the girls – and it wasn’t just Taylor that brought the girls together.
‘Since then, we’ve been more or less inseparable,’ says Kelsey. ‘Attending concerts and events, going for birthday dinners and brunches, complaining about boys and dating, and travelling to England and Ireland and everywhere else in between together.
‘We balance each other out really well. We’re both Scorpios but Danielle is quite grounded where as I’m a little more crazy at times! We’re partners in crime.’
They met Taylor in 2018 during the Reputation Tour (Picture: Supplied)
And, five years ago, Kelsey’s dream finally came true, when she met Taylor herself.
‘In August 2018, Danielle and I drove four hours from our city in Ontario to Detroit to see Taylor Swift together during her Reputation Tour.
‘We had already seen the concert a few weeks before, but really wanted to see her once more before the summer ended.
‘We dressed up in fringe outfits and danced the entire night away. At one point during King of My Heart, Taylor’s mum was walking towards us and stopped right in front of us. She asked us if we were enjoying the concert and if we had ever been brought backstage to meet Taylor.
Danielle and Kelsey believe it was fate that they met (Picture: Supplied)
‘In an incredible twist of fate, she invited us to meet Taylor after the show.
‘It was such an incredible experience. Meeting Taylor felt like catching up with an old friend, she was so easy to talk to. We were able to tell her that she’s the reason we became friends in the first place back in 2010, which she was amazed to hear and was thankful she could meet us together.’
Kelsey says that meeting Danielle, now 32, was fate.
‘I don’t talk to Claire anymore, but if I’d gone to T Party that night, I’d have never met Danielle, so I wouldn’t change a thing.
‘In the most serendipitous way, we believe we were meant to meet each other first, become close best friends, and meet Taylor together,’ she says.
The girls have matching Taylor Swift themed tattoos (Picture: Supplied)
The pair have even marked their Swiftie friendship by getting matching tattoos. ‘We have a crown with three hearts – one for each of us, plus Taylor, and that crown was inspired by the same song she was singing when we were selected to meet her.
‘We’ve been together through thick and thin. Of course, we love going to see Taylor together – we saw the Eras Tour four times – but there’s other special memories too. I remember in the pandemic, Danielle drove to my house, just to shout through her car window that she missed me.
‘She’s an amazing person, and I just love spending time with her. We’re there for each other, no matter what.’
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