Taylor Swift‘s dad, Scott Swift, is on the mend after undergoing quintuple bypass surgery.
Us Weekly can confirm that Scott had a heart procedure one month ago and is currently recovering following the health scare. TMZ first reported the news that Taylor, 35, her brother, Austin Swift, and their mother, Andrea Swift, were by Scott’s side amid the surgery, which came after a routine check-up. (Scott, 73, and Andrea, 67, have been married for 37 years.)
Scott was alerted by a doctor that he needed the heart procedure. A coronary artery bypass surgery is meant to create “a new path for blood to go around a blocked or partially blocked artery in the heart,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
The procedure “involves taking a healthy blood vessel from the chest or leg area. The vessel is connected below the blocked heart artery. The new path improves blood flow to the heart muscle.”
Celebrity Health Scares Through the Years
Over the years, Taylor has been open about how close she is with her parents. In 2015, she revealed that Andrea had been diagnosed with cancer.
“I’m writing to you with an update I wish I wasn’t giving you, but it’s important and I’m used to sharing important events in my life with you,” Taylor wrote via Tumblr at the time. “Usually when things happen to me, I process them and then write music about how I feel, and you hear it much later. This is something my family and I thought you should know about now.” She went on to explain that during a routine check-up which she’d encouraged her mom to get, doctors discovered Andrea had cancer.
Taylor continued: “I’d like to keep the details of her condition and treatment plans private, but she wanted you to know. She wanted you to know why she may not be at as many shows this tour. She’s got an important battle to fight.”
When her mom’s cancer returned, Taylor wrote a reflective personal essay.
“It’s taught me that there are real problems and then there’s everything else. My mom’s cancer is a real problem. I used to be so anxious about daily ups and downs,” she wrote for Elle in 2019. “I give all of my worry, stress and prayers to real problems now.”
Taylor went on to share that her dad had previously been diagnosed with cancer. She didn’t share specific details, adding, “Both of my parents have had cancer.”
Taylor Swift Has a Supportive Family: Meet Her Parents and Younger Brother
According to Taylor, Andrea was also diagnosed with a brain tumor while undergoing treatment for cancer.
“Everyone loves their mom; everyone’s got an important mom,” Taylor, who penned the song “Soon You’ll Get Better” for her Lover album about her mom’s health issues, told Variety in 2020. “But for me, she’s really the guiding force. Almost every decision I make, I talk to her about it first. So obviously it was a really big deal to ever speak about her illness.”
Taylor noted that it was “a really hard time” for her family, saying, “The symptoms of what a person goes through when they have a brain tumor is nothing like what we’ve ever been through with her cancer before.”
