“There’s no bad blood here.”
If you know anything about Christi Gregory, it’s that she loves Taylor Swift. The 18-year old-University of Texas college freshman’s obsession began when she was 15-years-old and heard “Our Song” on the radio. “I was riding in the car with a friend who told me I just had to listen to this new song”. For the next 3 years, Gregory and her sister Katie, a junior also at UT, would cultivate not only a personal obsession with the 25-year-old pop sensation, but make it a family affair.
This past Christmas, the two sisters, both members of Chi Omega, a PanHellenic sorority on campus, decided to channel their inner Taylor and create a Christmas card based on Swift’s “Blank Space” music video. “Every year we make a creative Christmas card and this past year my mom suggested we do something Taylor Swift themed. Once the Blank Space music video came out, I just knew we had to make our card look like her video!” The family used friend’s houses and horses to recreate Swift’s iconic look. After creating their card, they sent it to numerous TV shows, hoping that someone would take notice of their love for the pop singer.
Luckily for Gregory and her sister Katie, they would get to hand deliver the card themselves months later! The sisters attended Swift’s concert on October 17th, 2015 and were hand- picked to meet the singer.“Taylor’s mom gets to pick people to go to a meet and greet after the show, and I’m pretty sure she looks for energy and fans that look ‘die-hard’. My sister and I were wearing outfits that basically looked exactly like the characters in “Bad Blood” and we had our Christmas card to give to Taylor!”
Once the sisters caught eye of Swift’s mom, they ran up to her, asking if she could give the card to Taylor after the show. Mama Swift replied by saying “Of course I’ll give it to her!” She then asked the girls where they were sitting, saying that she “may” see them later. “After we talked with her for a bit we went back to our seats, but I knew I would have to see Taylor’s mom again if I wanted to make an impression.” So the sisters walked past again and were told by Mother Swift that they were going to meet Taylor after the concert! “I was so excited. I just remember her looking at our outfits and saying ‘You know girls, I’ve been thinking and this *motioning towards their outfits* deserves to meet Taylor’ and I remember crying” Gregory said. After the concert the girls were ushered into a comfy, intimate tent within the arena with about 20 other fans.
“We were probably the oldest there. But everyone was so nice!”
Before Swift came out, her father showed up at the meet and greet. “He was so goofy, he kept showing us text messages between him and Taylor from earlier that morning – saying ‘Did you see what Taylor was doing this morning?’ – typical dad stuff.”
When Swift made her arrival, Gregory could barely breathe. “My goal was to meet her and here she was in the same room as me!” In classic Taylor Swift fashion, Swift brought others to share the spotlight with her. “She brought Ellie Goulding, who had made a guest appearance that night at the show, and her two producers! She was so nice, saying that she wouldn’t be where she was without them and that we should definitely go and talk with them too!”
Patiently waiting their turn, Christi and Katie practiced and thought through what they were going to say, “I figured I could either go fan-girl or best-friend, and my sister always said that Taylor and I could be best friends, all we had to do was meet each other. So I decided I was going to talk to her like a friend.” Which seemed to work out perfectly, when the sisters met Taylor they instantly bonded. “We showed her our Christmas card and she freaked out, saying ‘How have I never seen this before?! This is incredible!’ She even pointed out that the cat we used wasn’t looking too happy to be in the picture – something that ‘Meredith [Swift’s feline friend] would also be doing if she had her picture taken.’”
When the night was almost over, Swift asked the girls to take a picture with her, telling them that their costumes were “badass.” “I’ve never been called that before in my life!” Gregory exclaimed, “And to be called that by my role model was pretty cool.”All in all, the Gregory sisters have won the lotto.
“Taylor is a great role model, everyone loves her, she has stayed true to herself, has a great relationship with her parents, and is so loving to her fans. I don’t know many entertainers who would do a 2 hour concert and then give another 2 hours of their time just to talk with fans. She shows what she values.”