Taylor Swift is named after him. He still didn't show up to her wedding.
James Taylor revealed he and his wife, Caroline "Kim" Smedvig-Taylor, were invited to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding at Madison Square Garden on July 3 - and turned it down. The reason wasn't drama. It was Tanglewood.
The 76-year-old singer-songwriter has an annual tradition of performing with his All-Star Band at the Koussevitzky Music Shed in Lenox, Massachusetts, every Fourth of July weekend.
Taylor didn't want to break that streak, even for one of the most talked-about weddings of the year. He explained the conflict to his own audience mid-show. "You know, Kim and I were invited to a wedding at Madison Square Garden tonight," he told the Tanglewood crowd, according to the Berkshire Eagle, before wishing the newlyweds "happiness and smooth sailing."
The connection between Taylor and Swift goes back further than most fans realize. Swift's parents named her after him - they were fans of his music and wanted a name that could work in the business world too. Swift has said she didn't learn the story until she was a teenager, when she mentioned to her mom that "Fire and Rain" was her favorite song to sing in chorus class. "It's really funny that you say that," her mom told her, "'cause you're kind of named after him."
The two have performed together more than once since, including a surprise duet of "Fire and Rain" at Swift's Madison Square Garden show during her Speak Now tour in 2011 - the same arena where she got married 15 years later.
Swift and Kelce tied the knot in front of roughly 1,000 guests, with Adam Sandler officiating. Taylor wasn't the only notable absence - reports have circled several other names who skipped the big day for reasons ranging from scheduling conflicts to prior commitments. But few carry quite the same "full circle" irony as the man whose name Swift has carried her entire career, choosing a decades-old promise to his own audience over a night at Madison Square Garden.
