After announcing her obsession with the American Royal Family, Taylor Swift is officially dating a Kennedy. Not only is she dating one, she will also be receiving a Kennedy award. America’s swan song princess is about to be a Real Kennedy Girl.
Below we’ve got the whole scoop so far on her romance with 18-year-old Conor Kennedy, and the entire family really.
Taylor’s been photographed extensively last week in Hyannisport, MA getting close with Conor (and wearing some adorable retro-vaction skirts-and-things on her slim frame, click here to see.) They’ve done all sorts of innocent lovebirds things like walking on beaches, jumping on trampolines, and going for pizza.
Do the Kennedys approve?
It’s not just a summer fling (or a paparazzi fling,) it’s “very real,” says his sister Kick Kennedy, “I love her, she’s great.” Kick (real name Kathleen) is dating her Newsroom co-star Thomas Matthews, (son of Chris Matthews.)
Kick isn’t the only one! Matriarch Ethel Kennedy, who’s actually known Taylor for a while now, said of Taylor’s pairing with Conor: “We should be so lucky.”
How did they meet?
For a minute the rumor was that matriarch Ethel Kennedy set them up, but it was actually Conor’s aunt Rory. Ethel said at the TCA press tour for her upcoming HBO bio-doc. “Rory went to a concert of hers with her two little girls, and that’s how that started.”
January 2012, Rory gushed about Taylor, telling ABC News that Taylor had written a song about the Kennedy’s after reading about them extensively:
“She really just loves my mother, which is so sweet. I’m a huge fan of hers – I have young girls and we had been to a few of her concerts.”
“I met with her at one of them, and she had read a ton of books about our family. She was inspired and wrote a song.”
Taylor herself told Vogue Paris this February:
“The only time in my life I have ever been star-struck was meeting Caroline and Ethel Kennedy.
I got to spend the afternoon with Ethel a couple of weeks ago,” she added. “She is one of my favorites because you look back at the pictures of her and Bobby, and they always look like they are having the most fun out of everybody. You know, eleven kids, all these exotic animals on their property. I’ve read a lot about them.”
As for Conor himself, this must be a very emotional time for him. Just this May his 52-year-old mother Mary Kennedy hanged herself in a barn after a long struggle with depression and addiction. Two weeks ago he was named the executor of her estate. No doubt if this romance with Taylor is serious, she’s really helping him deal with some difficult things. Taylor’s own parents are reportedly going through a separation (her next album is rumored to be inspired by that, well, that and The Kennedys.)
