Tyler Hilton was impressed with “nerdy” Taylor Swift’s talent when they first met when she was a teenager — but didn’t necessarily see her extreme stardom coming.
While on tour and promoting his new children’s book, Hilton, 41, spoke to Us Weekly and his past with the now mega pop star came up.
“I was doing an interview with a country magazine and they were talking about this girl Taylor Swift that just came out who was, like, 15. I heard her song ‘Tim McGraw’ and I was so into it. That first record was so good to me,” Hilton, who was in his early 20s at the time, recalled. “It sounds so dumb, but you have to be brave enough to write the lyrics like she did on that first record. They’re just not something that a professional songwriter would think. ‘When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song.’ I just would never use Tim McGraw on a song. It’s so cool. I told [the magazine], ‘Oh, by the way, that little thing you did on that new girl Taylor Swift, I’m actually a huge fan of her song. She’s such a good songwriter. … How many 15 year olds are actually good songwriters?’”
It turned out that Swift, now 35, was a “big fan” of Hilton, who was touring, guest-starring on One Tree Hill and had appeared as Elvis in 2006’s Walk the Line.
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“I didn’t know this, but she had watched all my videos on YouTube, like, all these little skits I did. Her manager reached out and was like, ‘Wait, this girl Taylor Swift is actually a huge Tyler fan. She’s freaking out that you mentioned her in this magazine.’ And I was like,’Oh, that’s so adorable,’” Hilton continued, explaining that Swift’s manager invited him to her show at “a little country bar in Southern California.”
Hilton attended and Swift revealed that she had been performing his cover of “Missing You” on stage. She asked him to perform with her that night in 2007.
“[She was] a very forward 15-year-old,” he said. “She literally corners me on stage and goes, ‘I didn’t want to ask you backstage ’cause I was afraid you’d say no, but would you be in my next music video?’ … That’s how I ended up in the ‘Teardrops On My Guitar’ music video. And after that she was like, ‘Oh, I’m doing some shows, would you want to come open for me?’ And she just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
Hilton and Swift stayed in touch as she found success with the release of her singles.
“I was just charmed by her and her family. We became close and then when I moved to Nashville, they let me live on their boat and live with them for a little while when I first moved to Nashville,” he recalled. “They were just, like, the Swifts — like, my buds — and their little teenage daughter was a fan. And I was like, ‘Aw, that’s so sweet.’ And now she’s the biggest star in the world.”
Hilton was on the boat “for a few weeks” before he found an apartment.
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“She was playing me songs in her bedroom out of her diary for her second record,” he told Us. “She was playing me ‘White Horse’ and it was crazy because I’m in her bedroom and I’m like, ‘Whoa, this girl is actually, like, princess, fairy, unicorn girl.’ It’s not an act — she actually had her songs written in, like, a fluffy diary and she is that nerd, you know what I mean? That’s what’s so sweet about her and I think is responsible for her longevity — it’s not an act. She’s actually that much of a nerd and it’s so endearing.”
Hilton admitted he “actually can’t believe she became as famous” as she did.
“We all collectively thought she was so adorable. It is like when the nerdy girl in high school becomes famous, she is that earnest,” he said. “She’s like, ‘Do you wanna hear another song outta my diary?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’ And they were all really good, but it was just like, ‘This is so funny.’”
As Swifties know, the Grammy winner has since released 11 studio albums. Hilton, for his part, has dropped five albums of his own and his first children’s book, Daddy: Live in Concert, is out April 8. He got the idea for the book after performing for his daughter, Winnie, now 5, during the pandemic at home with his wife, director Megan Park.
“It didn’t matter that I was a professional musician. Like, what if there was a book just about a dad whose daughter thought, ‘Oh, my God, my dad’s the biggest rock star in the world,’” Hilton explained. “And my daughter has never seen me tour or anything like that until this last year. I could have just been any random guy to her. And she was still like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I just thought it’d be so fun if there was this book from the little kid’s perspective — it’s a the version of like, ‘My dad could beat up your dad,’ but it’s like, ‘My dad is the biggest rock star in the whole world and he’s playing a concert at my house tonight.’”
Hilton and Park also share son Benny, born in 2024.
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“[Writing a song and a book is] actually so similar. A song’s a little harder because you have to do the music and stuff too, but I feel like I could write a thousand children’s books,” Hilton added. “It was not easy, but it came very naturally to me. And don’t get me wrong, I got a lot of help. … But even the editing process was so fun.”
While Hilton “loves” songwriting, he noted that a lot of that process comes from a “lovesick” or “yearning” place.
“They help me work through sadness or whatever, but children’s books, it’s like, ‘Wow, you’re returning to the drawing board. You’re back in kid world,’” he told Us. “It’s such a fun, refreshing world.”
