A guitar supposedly signed by Taylor Swift that was sold for $4,000 to a man who immediately smashed it was apparently not actually signed by the singer after all.
On September 28, the Ellis County WildGame Dinner in Waxahachie, Texas held an auction event for charity. Per their website page, the Ellis County WildGame Dinner describes itself as an organization committed to ‘supporting agricultural and rural education to the youth of Ellis County.’
As part of their charity auction, the organization advertised on their Facebook page that they would be auctioning off a ‘guitar autographed by country music star Taylor Swift.’
The organization advertised that they would be auctioning off a guitar allegedly signed by Swift. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
However at the event, a man reportedly bid $4,000 on the guitar, only to plough it with a hammer immediately after winning it. Video footage of the guitar’s destruction went absolutely viral online, with one video posted on Twitter earlier this week garnering over 22 million views.
Watch the viral clip below:
The plot has now thickened however as a source close to Swift’s merchandise company confirmed to HuffPost that the guitar was not signed by the singer and that it was not a certified official guitar used by her.
Moreover, the source added that an actual signed guitar by Swift would come with a certificate of authenticity, which her team reportedly doesn’t believe the auctioned guitar has.
Variety also reports that the guitar came with a signed CD insert but the instrument itself was not signed.
An actual Taylor Swift guitar for reference. (Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)
Reactions toward the man’s guitar purchase have been divided on social media, with some of Swift’s supporters theorizing that his actions may have been politically motivated following the singer’s public endorsement of Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris.
“A grown man paying $4,000 to destroy a guitar to impress Trump is next level pathetic,” one user on Twitter wrote.
“It doesn’t affect Taylor Swift and he just lost $4,000,” another added.
“Imagine spending $4k on a guitar when there’s literally an emergency situation on the east coast,” another user said in reference to Hurricane Helene. “That $4k could have [helped] a lot of other people instead of some collector.”
Other fans noted that the guitar didn’t look real.
“The funniest part is that this [is] definitely a fake signed guitar like it has the wrong Era’s Tour logo and font I’m crying,” one fan wrote on Twitter.
UNILAD previously reached out to the Ellis County WildGame Dinner for comment.
Mark Zuckerberg reveals brutal advice he gave his daughter when she said she wanted ‘to be like Taylor Swift’
Mark Zuckerberg made it clear to his daughter he doesn’t want her to be like Taylor Swift
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t seem to pull any punches when offering advice to his 7 year-old daughter after making a comment most parents hear.
Getting advice from one of the pioneering minds of the 21st century – when it comes to technology – is a pretty great opportunity.
Just for clarity, we are talking about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg here.
The tech mogul’s three daughters, Maxima, Aurelia and August all have a great opportunity to learn from their father, regardless of their age, at least according to Zuckerberg.
While speaking on the Acquired Podcast, Zuckerberg told a room full of people some words of wisdom. One question in particular seemed to remind him of a lesson he attempted to teach his second oldest daughter, 7-year-old August.
He was asked by the hosts what advice would he give to new entrepreneurs and founders trying to make their own mark in the industry.
Zuckerberg reflected on a lesson he taught his daughter during the podcast(Acquired podcast/YouTube)
Funnily enough, this kind of tied into a lesson he tried to teach his daughter when she said she wanted to be like music pop-star, Taylor Swift.
Zuckerberg said: “One day, my daughter. We took her to a Taylor Swift concert and she was like, ‘You know Dad, I kind of want to be like Taylor Swift when I grow up.
“I was like, ‘But you can’t. That’s not available to you.
“She thought about it and she’s like, ‘Alright when I grow up I want people to want to be like August Chan Zuckerberg,’”
With the proudest fatherly smile, Zuckerberg then just added he was like ‘hell yeah, hell yeah.’
Admittedly, I didn’t get it at first. I mean if you are the daughter of a billionaire, you probably have the means to get your way into the music industry and try your hand at a singing career.
Mark Zuckerberg explained why he insisted his daughter couldn’t be Taylor Swift(John Shearer/Getty Images for MTV)
But explaining a bit more during the podcast, Zuckerberg added: “Part of what I am trying to say is, I think there are different ways to build stuff.
“Our way worked for me and our team, and different things have clearly worked for other companies, I dont know.
“I think it is like, learn from other peoples successes and failures but do your own thing,”
Now that sounds like a rather good message to teach your daughter, and with context is a lot less brutal than suggesting to your child they will simply never be the successful, billionaire superstar that is Taylor Swift.
Published 17:41 21 Feb 2024 GMT
Taylor Swift fan reveals she’s spent more than $30,000 on the singer and has no plans on stopping
Swiftie Millie Porter has spent some $30,000 on the singer since she first became a fan of the musician, including attending the Eras Tour
A fan of Taylor Swift has revealed that she’s spent an enormous amount of money on her favourite musician, including seeing her play in Australia.
How much would you be prepared to spend to see your favourite musician perform? Are we talking hundreds? Thousands? What about tens of thousands?
Well, for Swiftie Millie Porter, the answer runs into the thousands.
Porter has estimated that she’s spent a whopping $30,000 on Taylor Swift since she first became a fan.
It seems that Warhammer fans now have a challenger in terms of how much money they sink into their hobby!
Of this $30k, Porter estimates that around $7,000 – $9,000 of it was just to attend the Australian leg of Swift’s Eras Tour.
The rest includes things such as travel expenses, concert tickets, buying CDs and vinyl records, themed outfits, and getting Taylor Swift themed tattoos.
She told The Age: “[That includes] outfits, friendship bracelets, all of that kind of stuff – to be conservative.”
Porter didn’t just see Swift once on this tour either, but went to all three performances of the tour in Melbourne.
She even set up a special Taylor Swift card specifically to cover expenses related to the tour. Of that $9,000, around $1,400 of it alone was at the merchandise store.
The store includes things like $40 water bottles, tote bags and bracelets costing $50, and $120 pullovers.
And Porter confirmed that she has no plans to slow down with her spending on Taylor Swift, saying: “I have so much serotonin, so much joy right now.”
But others were a little less cash happy with their trip, instead working on a slightly tighter budget during their trip.
Graham Denholm/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
One said: “I spent lower than $80 on tickets and beads, and after getting merch, it’s going to be $200! How are these folks so wealthy?”
Another revealed that she had spent around $1,500, while her friend had dropped around $500 on the experience.
The singer’s presence has seen a spike in spending in Melbourne as fans splurged while in town to see Swift perform.
One estimate suggests that spending in metro Melbourne was up by some $174 million over the weekend of Swift’s performance according to data from National Australia Bank [NAB].
This represents an increase of around 33% from the previous month.
NAB executive Julie Rynski said: “Taylor was certainly the cheer captain for businesses across the city. From sold-out hotels to bustling restaurants, the economic boost that follows is tangible.”
