Tyler Hilton Reveals How He First Met Taylor Swift & How He Ended Up in Her Music Video
Tyler Hilton is talking Taylor Swift.
The 41-year-old One Tree Hill actor and singer got candid about his past with the 35-year-old music superstar in a new interview.
“I was doing an interview with a country magazine and they were talking about this girl Taylor Swift that just came out who was, like, 15. I heard her song ‘Tim McGraw’ and I was so into it,” he recalled to Us.
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“That first record was so good to me,” he remembered. “It sounds so dumb, but you have to be brave enough to write the lyrics like she did on that first record. They’re just not something that a professional songwriter would think. ‘When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song.’ I just would never use Tim McGraw on a song. It’s so cool. I told [the magazine], ‘Oh, by the way, that little thing you did on that new girl Taylor Swift, I’m actually a huge fan of her song. She’s such a good songwriter. … How many 15 year olds are actually good songwriters?’”
Taylor herself turned out to be a “big fan” of Tyler.
“I didn’t know this, but she had watched all my videos on YouTube, like, all these little skits I did. Her manager reached out and was like, ‘Wait, this girl Taylor Swift is actually a huge Tyler fan. She’s freaking out that you mentioned her in this magazine.’ And I was like,’Oh, that’s so adorable,’” he continued, revealing that Taylor‘s manager invited him to her show at “a little country bar in Southern California.”
Tyler attended and Taylor revealed that she had been performing his cover of “Missing You” on stage, and asked him to perform with her that night in 2007.
“[She was] a very forward 15-year-old,” he said.
“She literally corners me on stage and goes, ‘I didn’t want to ask you backstage ’cause I was afraid you’d say no, but would you be in my next music video?’ … That’s how I ended up in the ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’ music video. And after that she was like, ‘Oh, I’m doing some shows, would you want to come open for me?’ And she just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
They continued to stay in touch afterward.
“I was just charmed by her and her family. We became close and then when I moved to Nashville, they let me live on their boat and live with them for a little while when I first moved to Nashville,” he recalled.
“They were just, like, the Swifts — like, my buds — and their little teenage daughter was a fan. And I was like, ‘Aw, that’s so sweet.’ And now she’s the biggest star in the world.”
“She was playing me songs in her bedroom out of her diary for her second record,” he remembered.
“She was playing me ‘White Horse’ and it was crazy because I’m in her bedroom and I’m like, ‘Whoa, this girl is actually, like, princess, fairy, unicorn girl.’ It’s not an act — she actually had her songs written in, like, a fluffy diary and she is that nerd, you know what I mean? That’s what’s so sweet about her and I think is responsible for her longevity — it’s not an act. She’s actually that much of a nerd and it’s so endearing.”
Tyler says he “actually can’t believe she became as famous” as she did.
“We all collectively thought she was so adorable. It is like when the nerdy girl in high school becomes famous, she is that earnest. She’s like, ‘Do you wanna hear another song outta my diary?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’ And they were all really good, but it was just like, ‘This is so funny.’”
Watch their video together…