Ethel Kennedy inspired Taylor Swift's song “Starlight.” What the pop star shared

Taylor Swift already had a connection to Ethel Kennedy before she met the Kennedy family matriarch.

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

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)”.

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 stylistic inspiration from the 1960s, so I look at black and white images and look at (photos from the) '50s and '60s,” she told the Wall Street Journal. “And I came across this picture of these two children dancing. I immediately thought of how much fun they must have had that evening. That was in the late 1940s.”

As Swift continued to look at the photo, she learned more about the couple featured in the photo.

“At the end I read underneath that it was Ethel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. And they were about 17 (Robert was born November 20, 1925, Ethel was born April 11, 1928),” she said. “So I just wrote the song from that place, not really knowing how they met or anything like that. And then her daughter Rory came to a show a few weeks later and I told her about the song and she was like, 'You need to meet my mom.' She'd like to meet you.' So that's what the song was about. “Swift and Ethel Kennedy met and later posed together at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2012 in Park City, Utah.

That same year, Swift became romantically involved with a Kennedy. In the summer of 2012, the singer was dating Conor Kennedy, grandson of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy.

The couple have been photographed together on various occasions but have remained quiet 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 tell enough about your life in your music to let people know what you're going through,” she told Glamor in 2012, following her relationship with Conor Kennedy was asked. Some fans have speculated that “Begin Again” is about the romance between her and Conor Kennedy.

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

“She is fantastic. I love her,” she replied.