{"id":457604,"date":"2025-09-28T09:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T09:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/457604\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T09:59:18","slug":"i-shared-bunk-beds-with-taylor-swift-her-mum-was-constantly-telling-me-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/457604\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I shared bunk beds with Taylor Swift – her mum was constantly telling me off’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emily Poe Stumler, who previously worked with the young Taylor Swift as a violinist on her first ever tour, opens up about Andrea Swift’s determination that her daughter would get what she wanted in life\"TaylorTaylor Swift, before her global success and billionaire status, always had a game plan, says her ex-touring musician(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

From the sweet farm kid who ran around barefoot with her wild tangle of white-blonde curls to a global mega-star, Taylor Swift<\/a> has secured her billionaire status, recorded 16 full-length albums and is freshly engaged to her American footballer fiance Travis Kelce.<\/p>\n

And one woman who was with her for the very early years of her fame said this was the \u201cdriven and determined\u201d Taylor\u2019s game plan all along. Emily Poe Stumler was hired to be Taylor\u2019s fiddler back in 2006 when the then-17-year-old country singer was touting her demo CD around Nashville, hoping to be picked up for a record deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was so driven, even at that age,\u201d says mum-of-two Emily, now 40, who was just a few years older than the teenaged Taylor when they went on tour for the first time. \u201cThe plan was for her to always be as famous as she became.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Emily,Emily, right, jamming with the then-teenage Taylor Swift during the early years of Taylor’s career(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Now Emily reveals for the first time the incredible impact Taylor\u2019s mum Andrea Swift had on the young girl, and how her support meant the world<\/a> as Taylor negotiated transitioning from \u201cthe weird<\/a> kid with no friends\u201d in middle school to the young popstar winning her first VMA Award. \u201cIf there was no Andrea, there would be no Taylor Swift,\u201d says Emily bluntly. \u201cShe saw her daughter\u2019s vision and she sacrificed her life so Taylor could do what she wanted in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea, who had worked as a mutual fund marketing executive before having Taylor and her younger brother Austin with their father Scott, gave up her high-flying career to manage the young Taylor\u2019s music affairs, using the skills she\u2019d built up in her previous male-dominated industry to secure deals for Taylor.<\/p>\n

\"EmilyEmily with Taylor’s mum Andrea, who sacrificed her career to ensure her daughter could launch her own(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

At the same time, she was parenting the teenage Taylor while living with her, Emily and the rest of the band on their tour bus – which was fitted out in leopard print because Cher had previously hired it. \u201cWe were all living on top of each other – I was in the bottom bunk, Taylor was in the top bunk, and it was like having a little sister who was also my boss,\u201d remembers Emily.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrea was doing the best she could [with the management side], it was all so new and crazy. Normal teenagers have dissonance with their parents, but we were all living on a bus so there just wasn\u2019t room for fights. I do remember Andrea telling me off constantly for having a messy bunk, though!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Emily,Emily, Andrea and Taylor lived on the tour bus while the band travelled around the US and Canada playing tiny gigs(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Emily was with Taylor for all her big \u2018firsts\u2019 – including the first time she was recognised by a fan. \u201cWe were in a department store and the assistant looked at her ID and said, \u2018oh, Taylor Swift, that\u2019s the name of my favourite singer\u2019. And Taylor was like, \u2018that\u2019s me!\u2019 She was so excited afterwards – this was what all the hard work had been about, so she could expose people to her music and have them appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor has since gone on to win 14 Grammys, but Emily was there when she bagged her first ever CMA (Country Music Association) Award for Best New Artist – and they celebrated with McDonald\u2019s. \u201cWe\u2019d performed at the CMAs and then Taylor had won,\u201d she smiles. \u201cWe all piled back on to the tour bus, got into our pyjamas and Taylor wanted fries. So we tried to get this enormous bus through the Drive-Thru!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Taylor,Taylor, then 17, with Emily, who saw her boss as a little sister(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Life on the road could be tough, but also a lot of fun. \u201cIt was like having a sleepover with a high school friend every night,\u201d Emily recalls. Taylor and her band performed more than 300 shows in a single year as she fought to get her music career off the ground – laying the groundwork for her behemoth 2023-24 Eras Tour, where she played 149 three-hour shows spanning five continents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou live out of a suitcase for a year, and while you\u2019re not slumming it – tour buses are very luxurious! – it is hard to be constantly on the move,\u201d says Emily. \u201cBut for Taylor\u2019s whole career, 20 years now, that\u2019s been her and Andrea\u2019s life. It\u2019s a hard life, but it\u2019s been very rewarding for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Off-stage, Taylor was still a teenage girl finding her feet. \u201cNowadays there are stylists and a huge entourage, but then it was all of us getting ready on the bus pre-show,\u201d says Emily. \u201cI was the only woman in the band, Taylor was a lot tinier than me, so I could never wear her clothes. But I remember I gave her my earrings when she was on The Jay Leno Show for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TaylorTaylor and Emily on stage during the start of Taylor’s fame(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

While Taylor taught Emily the power of pure determination, Emily helped the budding singer keep her feet on the ground. \u201cI was a very loyal friend to her at a time when her life was going crazy, and I think I taught her that life can be fun, and we can do regular people things and have fun – hanging out at the mall, going to the cinema.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that she still tries to do that, even though that’s not what life is now. I was like an older friend to her – a sister really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emily and Taylor parted ways in 2007 when the young singer\u2019s songwriting started going in a more poppy direction. \u201cI was the country fiddle player so there was a natural breaking point there. Sometimes things can\u2019t last forever – and why would you want them to?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are online rumours that Taylor\u2019s song Breathe was penned about the end of her friendship with Emily – but the chief deputy prosecuting attorney for Harrison County in Indiana refuses to be drawn. \u201cHow flattering to think that I was part of her life in such a way that I deserve a song!\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

\"EmilyEmily remembers Taylor was always writing lyrics in the back of the tour bus(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

The pair didn\u2019t stay in touch after Emily quit touring to go to law school, but she only has best wishes for the now 35-year-old star. \u201cIf we bumped into each other now I think we would reminisce about all those years ago and all the fun we had, because I hope she looks back on those early years of her career as fun,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were a whole lot of work, but also you only get the \u2018first\u2019s once, and I was there for so many of those. The first time playing the Grand Ole Opry [a live country music radio broadcast from Nashville], the first album she released. How cool all that was, and how different life is for her now.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Taylor\u2019s next studio album, Life of a Showgirl, due to be released on October 3 – her first since winning back the master rights to her entire back catalogue after a protracted legal battle – Emily says the talented singer seemingly hasn\u2019t changed from those early days.<\/p>\n

\"Emily,Emily, right, with Taylor and the rest of the band(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

\u201cShe always had a notepad and pen in hand, scribbling down lyrics in the back of the bus,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI remember when she wrote Fearless, she came off the bus and just started playing it during soundcheck and everyone was going along with it. That was a cool moment – and at some point we played it live and the crowd loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Emily isn\u2019t surprised that Taylor has amassed millions of loyal fans – Swifties – from around the globe. \u201cEven in those early days she\u2019d be selling nearly as much merchandise at shows as the headliners, and we were supporting,\u201d she remembers.<\/p>\n

\u201cGirls liked her, they related to her and they wore her face or her lyrics on their shirt, and that meant something to her: to have people pay their money for her merchandise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised she\u2019s become as big as she has, because that was the first inkling. To be unapologetically who you are, like Taylor is, that\u2019s a big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

*The two-part documentary Taylor airs on Tuesday September 30 on Channel 4<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emily Poe Stumler, who previously worked with the young Taylor Swift as a violinist on her first ever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,8733,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-457604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-taylor-swift","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115281341518810889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}