Taylor Swift’s Israeli bodyguard returns to enlist
One of Taylor Swift’s bodyguards on her Eras Tour might have been humming her hit song, “Look What You Made Me Do,” to Hamas as the Israeli-born security agent headed home and back to his army unit, to fight in the IDF in the wake of the October 7 terror attack.
Eran Swissa of Israel Hayom reported on Sunday that the guard, who preferred not to give his name, said: “I have a pretty great life in the US, a dream job, great friends, and a comfortable home. I didn’t have to come here, but I couldn’t stand by while families were slaughtered and burned alive in their homes. Don’t stand by and do nothing. Don’t be on the wrong side of history.”
Swissa published photos of the guard protecting Swift on the US leg of her tour, and then in full army gear.
“It would be an insult to animals around the world to call these terrorists ‘animals.’ They killed and butchered families in their beds, along with the family’s pets, and in the end also burned down their houses. Try to imagine this happening in your neighborhood, or to your family,” the guard said.
He had already drawn the
appreciative attention of Swift’s fans in a TikTok video released this summer, which shows him scanning the ground and protecting the singer from bracelets hurled at her.
“Taylor Swift’s fans demand a raise for this bodyguard as he steals the show at Kansas City,” the fan posting the video said.
“That man just scanned a thousand people in the crowd in six seconds, six seconds flat. Whatever Taylor Swift’s paying him, it’s not enough,” commented a second fan shown in the video.
Now we know where he got his skills. Fans took to social media to praise the guard once the story broke, posting comments in Hebrew like, “He’s one of ours” on TikTok.
Swift’s concert movie of the Eras tour opened around the world on Friday, breaking all records for tickets for a concert film, grossing about $130 million around the world in its opening weekend.
It would have opened in Israel on Thursday, but movie theaters are closed due to the war. Advance tickets had been selling briskly in Israel for weeks and theater chains promised they would honor them once theaters reopen.
Some fans criticized Swift, who often comments on US politics, for not posting anything about the war. But one Israeli Swiftie said thoughts of her idol helped her get through the horrific siege.
Renana Botzer Swissa, a 13-year-old from Kfar Aza, who hid with her family for 16 hours as Hamas murdered dozens of their friends and neighbors, told CBS news correspondent Norah O’Donnell that, “In the hard moments [my mother] told me to think about the Taylor Swift performance we’re going to in June.”
The interviewer asked, “It gave you hope?” and Swissa said, “Yes, that I’m going to make it to June. That I’m going to make it out of there alive.”