Oh, hey, James! Hey, Inez!
“Aunt” Taylor Swift gave an adoring shout-out to Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s oldest daughters when she spotted them in the crowd at her Philadelphia show Friday night.
Before performing “Betty,” a song about a teenage love triangle from her “Folklore” album, Swift, 33, told the crowd at her Eras tour, “I named the characters after real people in my life who I love more than anything. And their names are James, Inez and Betty.”
She proceeded to look in the girls’ direction and appeared to mouth, “Hi, James, hi, Inez,” as she sang while accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, clad in a sparkling red coat over a short matching romper. Footage of Lively dancing exuberantly in the crowd popped up on social media.
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At the end of the show, after the stadium cleared out and the house lights went on, Swift was captured on video exiting a ramp backstage, waving to cameras as she clutched James, 8, by the hand, and Lively held a snoozing Inez, 6. (Reynolds and Lively’s younger daughter, Betty, is 3. The couple’s fourth child is thought to have been born in February.)
Reynolds previously confirmed Swift’s affectionate relationship with his kids in an interview with SiriusXM. “For the longest time, they just thought Taylor’s just a, you know, like an aunt, like a friend of Mommy and Daddy that’s very, very close, almost family,” he said. “And then they went to a (Swift) concert one day and were like, ‘Ohhhhh, this isn’t a hobby.’ “
Taylor Swift settles that ‘Eagles T-shirt’ debate: ‘Of course it’s the team’
But for Philadelphia Eagles fans, the bigger name-check of the night occurred when Swift confirmed that the “Eagles T-shirt” hanging on her door in the song “Gold Rush,” is in fact a reference to the NFL team, rather than the beloved rock band.
“I love the band the Eagles, but guys, like, come on, like, I’m from Philly,” Swift told the crowd. (She was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, about an hour from Philadelphia – in, famously, “1989.”) “Of course it’s the team.”
See the list so far:Taylor Swift is adding surprise songs to every Eras tour stop
Swift plays again Sunday night in Philadelphia before moving on for three shows in Foxborough, Massachusetts, starting Friday.
Contributing: Melissa Ruggieri
