Bodyguard: I saw DJ reach under star Swift’s skirt
TAYLOR Swift’s former bodyguard has said he saw a DJ reach under her skirt a moment before a photographer snapped their picture during a meet-and-greet where the singer says the radio host groped her.
Security guard Greg Dent, who no longer works for Swift, said he was standing a few steps away but did not intervene because he generally took his cues from the pop star, and she gave him no signals during the 2013 pre-concert encounter at a Denver arena.
Seated at her legal team’s table in a federal courtroom, Swift chuckled when Mr Dent testified that, after the photo was taken, he suspected KYGO-FM host David Mueller would be at the bar of the arena — and another guard found him there.
Mr Dent’s account came on the fourth day of testimony in a civil trial over competing lawsuits between Swift and Mueller, who denies groping her and is seeking up to US$3m from the singer-songwriter, her mother and their radio liaison to compensate him for his ruined career.
Swift is counter-suing for just one dollar and what she calls a chance to stand up for other women.
A day earlier, she spent an hour on the witness stand herself, defiantly recounting what she called a “despicable and horrifying and shocking” encounter.
“He stayed attached to my bare ass-cheek as I lurched away from him,” she testified. “It was a definite grab. A very long grab,” she added in her testimony.
Swift’s testy exchange with Mueller’s attorney occasionally elicited chuckles — even from the six-women, two-men jury.
She got a laugh when she said the bodyguard saw Mueller “lift my skirt” but someone would have had to have been underneath her to see the actual groping — “and we didn’t have anyone positioned there”.
In the image, shown to jurors during opening statements but not publicly released, Mr Mueller’s hand is behind Swift, just below her waist. Both are smiling.
The trial is scheduled to last until next Thursday but appeared yesterday to be moving quickly to closing arguments.