Keith Urban knew Taylor Swift was going to be big — and he’s got the stories to prove it.
During the Thursday, December 12 episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show, the 57-year-old country music legend reminisced about the days when a young Swift, now 34, opened for him during his 2009 Escape Together World Tour.
“She was amazing even back then,” Urban recalled. “I would sit up front and watch her sing, and I’m like, ‘Oh, she was singing way off into this other thing.’ You could see it. She was playing way past where she was already. It’s amazing.”
And of course, Swift being Swift, there were pranks. The “Somebody Like You” singer remembered one night when she completely fooled him by dressing up as KISS guitarist Ace Frehley during his performance of “Kiss a Girl.”
Following the trick, Swift took to X (formerly Twitter) with a picture of herself and her crew posing as the notorious glam rockers. “Pranking is a must. How about rushing his stage during ‘Kiss a Girl’ dressed like this? It went down,” she wrote at the time.
“I thought it was KISS for a minute,” Urban admitted to host Jennifer Hudson. “It was so good.”
Their collaboration didn’t stop there. The country star shared how Swift asked him to feature on Fearless (Taylor’s Version) for the tracks “That’s When” and “We Were Happy.” How did she ask? The same way most of us do things — with a quick text.
“She just texted me and said, ‘I have a song that I want you to sing on,’ and I said, ‘Can you send me the song?’ The next minute, she texted me the song,” Urban said, explaining that he was casually sitting in a mall food court with his AirPods in when he got the “unreleased Taylor song.”
“It was crazy,” he added.
Although Urban doesn’t have a crystal ball, his predictions about Swift’s success were pretty spot on.
The “Cruel Summer” songstress just wrapped up her record-breaking Eras Tour on Sunday, December 8. Spanning 149 shows across five continents, the 21-month tour brought in over $2 billion and entertained over 10 million fans, officially making it the bestselling tour of all time.
