For nearly a decade, singer Taylor Swift has enjoyed Manhattan living from a $50 million compound in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood, an 8,300-square-foot duplex she assembled from a set of adjoining Franklin Street homes. On Saturday, the peace on her cobblestone street was briefly shattered, but the commotion wasn’t caused by the star’s comings and goings. Instead, a man some outlets are referring to as a “suspected stalker” prompted a police response after he was photographed on Swift’s doorstep.
A witness who spoke with Page Six says the man “went up to Taylor’s door” at around 1 p.m. Saturday. “I’m not sure if he knocked or rang the doorbell,” the person said. When contacted by Vanity Faira New York Police Department spokesperson said in an email that around that same time, police received “a 911 call for a disorderly person along Franklin Street.”
Officers arrived on the scene at around 1:35 p.m., and “were informed that the individual attempted to open a door to a building at the location,” the spokesperson wrote. Photos from the scene confirm that the man was at Swift’s door.
This wasn’t the first time the man was seen in the area, unnamed witnesses tell Page Six. One said he’s been “sleeping on the stoop,” while another said he’s been seen in the area “for a month.” Another neighbor, also unnamed, told the paper that “When he arrived before Christmas, my husband asked what he was doing here, and he said, ‘I want to see Taylor.’”
However, his arrest was spurred not by any alleged threats to Swift, but by an unrelated incident seven years ago, TMZ reports. An arrest warrant for the man was reportedly issued in 2017, after he allegedly failed “to answer a court summons in Brooklyn.” The man, who has not been publicly identified, apparently evaded law enforcement ever since.
A spokesperson with NYPD declined to confirm those details to Vanity Fairbut did write that “An investigation determined that the individual had an active warrant and was taken into custody.”
It’s unclear who summoned the police or if Swift was at home when the incident occurred, but the singer is no stranger to threats and unwanted advances from strangers. Her beachside mansion has been a target of stalkers since Swift bought it in 2013, most recently when a 54-year-old woman refused to leave its Rhode Island gates last July.
And in 2018, a man named Roger Alvarado broke into the same home police were summoned to Saturday, where he took a shower and fell asleep in one of Swift’s beds. He was sentenced to six months in prison in 2019. In 2022, a Brooklyn man named Joshua Christian reportedly believed Swift was being held hostage at the home, and allegedly entered the building through an unlocked door. A judge ordered him to stay away from Swift in a subsequent hearing.
The issue is persistent enough that Swift addressed it in an essay entitled “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30.” In the piece, she writes, “Websites and tabloids have taken it upon themselves to post every home address I’ve ever had online,” and that “you get enough stalkers trying to break into your house, and you kind of start prepping for bad things.”
That said, Swift wrote, “We have to live bravely in order to truly feel alive, and that means not being ruled by our greatest fears.” To that point, Swift is still expected to make an appearance in New York just a few hours from now, as her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelcetakes the field in New York’s Orchard Park for the AFC championship game against the Buffalo Bills. The game begins at Highmark Stadium at 6:30 p.m. ET.
2024-01-21 16:36:00
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