How Taylor Swift — caught in uproar over Gaza luncheon — doles out her billions to charity
Pop superstar Taylor Swift — who hit a sour note with some fans after attending a recent charity event for Gaza — has been quietly doling out her fortune in the years leading up to achieving billionaire status.
The singer’s largess has ranged from supporting food banks during stops on her record-shattering “Eras Tour — to donating $1 million to Tennessee residents ravaged by the deadly tornadoes last weekend.
The day before the storms, Swift lent her star power to Ramy Youseff’s “More Feelings” comedy show — which donated 100% of its proceeds to humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza — landing her in hot water with Megyn Kelly, who this week called for a boycott over the seemingly anti-Israel move.
After the extreme weather swept through the state, Swift moved to cut the seven-figure check to the Tennessee Emergency Response Fund, an affiliate of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, USA Today initially reported.
There were 83 people injured and six reported dead following the storms, including a twister that hit Hendersonville, where Swift moved with her family to pursue her music career at 13 years old.
Per the fund’s website, gifts made as of Dec. 9 are earmarked for “assisting tornado survivors with their immediate needs,” including “direct financial assistance, food, temporary housing, debris clean-up and animal sheltering.”
Any remaining funding will support “long-term recovery needs such as counseling and mental health services,” the Community Foundation noted.
The foundation’s CEO, Hal Cato, told USA Today: “The Swifts found their original Tennessee home in Hendersonville and Sumner County and remain deeply committed to its continued well-being.”
“Taylor’s incredibly generous gift sends a message to her hometown and the communities around it that she has their backs during the long road to recovery following this devastating event.”
Swift made a similar million-dollar donation to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund in 2020 when another bout of fatal windstorms broke ground.
More recently, Swift quietly handed out donations to food banks, including in Glendale, Ariz. in March. The undisclosed donation to the Arizona Food Bank Network allowed for 40,000 pounds of fresh produce to be handed out to members in need.
The gift also helped eligible children in the state gain access to free and reduced-price school meals and senior citizens obtain food stamps, according to CNN Business.
The following weekend, when Swift made a two-day pit stop in Las Vegas, the Three Squares Food Bank in Nevada got a call from Swift’s team.
“We thought, ‘Are we getting punked?’” Three Square’s chief development officer, Michelle Beck, told Today at the time.
“They said they wanted to make a gift to help the areas that they were performing in. For us, that was a pretty amazing day,” Beck added.
And in July, Seattle-based Food Lifeline received a donation from Swift it used to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, a spokesperson told CNN.
The following week, as Swift brought her show to Santa Clara, Calif., Secord Harvest of Silicon Valley Food Bank disclosed on Instagram that the 34-year-old donated enough “to nourish an average of about 500,000 people every month in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.”
The newly-minted billionaire has also been generous to her staff, awarding her truckers in August with a massive $100,000 raise for moving her set pieces across the US.
Along with bonuses given to dancers, caterers, sound technicians, and other members of “The Eras Tour” production team, Swift has reportedly doled out a total of $55 million.
Swift’s generosity also made headlines in 2021, when she and her mother, Andrea, donated $50,000 to a GoFundMe created on behalf of Vickie Quarles, a mother of five daughters whose husband died of COVID-19.
Swift’s gift fulfilled the fund’s entire $50,000 goal, lifting the total amount of donations to above $65,000.
The year prior, she paid rent for a Nashville-based single mother, Nikki Cornwell, who shared with The Washington Post at the time that she was behind on bills because the government had yet to strike a stimulus agreement amid the pandemic.
Alongside a $13,000 donation — fitting for the pop star, whose lucky number is 13 — Swift wrote on Cornwell’s GoFundMe page: “Nikki, I read about you in the Washington Post and thought it was really brave of you to share your story. I’m so sorry for everything you’ve had to go through this year and wanted to send you this gift, from one Nashville girl to another. Love, Taylor.”
A handful of Swifties who shared similar struggles on social media also noted that the superstar had personally sent them each a stimulus check for as much as $3,000.
And on yet another fundraising page detailing a young woman’s stage four osteosarcoma diagnosis, Swift sent $10,000.
Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
