Now we know why Taylor Swift was performing in front of an empty arena the other night. Her fans had sent her letters and she threw them all away. Unopened. When a woman found hundreds of fan letters in a dumpster she called the local news. You know, because she was concerned for Taylor's fans and thought Taylor would be concerned too. Not so much. I think her management office just didn't like the fact they were caught. Their statement was, "After the letters are opened and read, they are recycled." Translated that means they always go in the dumpster. They didn't say whether they respond to any which means no and I'm guessing someone forgot to dump them in recycling and put them in a dumpster instead. Some of the letters had been opened. The rest had not. That sounds like it is standard practice. You and I both know that Taylor is never going to respond to all of the fan mail she gets. It is probably too much to have staffers do it, but I can tell you that as a kid who sent fan mail, I bet for the cost of one of her private jet flights to Europe, Taylor could mail a fake autographed photo back to her fans with a standard letter. Better than having your thoughts and wishes end up unopened in a dumpster.
You really expect her to read every single letter? Come on
ReplyDeleteThat's not Taylor's fault. That's her staff's job. I highly doubt she instructed them to throw them away unopened. They said on the radio she literally gets THOUSANDS a day. That's ridic.
ReplyDeleteAnd do you really think it only happens with her....come on..
ReplyDeleteOh please. Get off of your soapbox Enty, its transparently self-serving...go back to her real-estate stalking
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's much more likely that every letter gets opened and then sent a form letter in return. Some staffer probably started just throwing them out because he or she was tired of opening them.
ReplyDeleteShould shed it.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I miss the days of old Hollywood where stars sent autographed 8x10's to every one who sent them fanmail. Just a form of appreciation since without your fans there would be no you.
ReplyDeleteI sent a fan letter to Gloria Estefan when I was like 9, and she sent back a signed pic :)
ReplyDeleteSounds like a staff member got lazy - I doubt Taylor actually instructed them to throw the letters away, unopened.
ReplyDeleteI once sent fan mail to Alyssa Milano. I never received anything back. I forgive her.
ReplyDeleteWow...thousands of letters a day and our US Postal service is still in financial trouble? At .46 a stamp...just sayin'...
ReplyDeleteMy childhood best friend and I received a letter and autographed pictures from Donny Osmond. We were so thrilled and over the moon. LOL I don't think I've admitted this to my best friend. ;)
ReplyDeleteI wrote Michael Jackson. My letter must have been recycled without opening - no response.
ReplyDeleteBUT, I do have letters from Princess Diana's lady-in-waiting and Ronald Reagan.
You can tell I was an 80's kid.
I can top that....I have a signed pic from President Jimmy Carter's wife!!! Oh yeah!
DeleteAt least she's not lining her cat boxes with them.
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: I sent letters to NKOTB when I was younger. All of them.
I guess Taylor's staff should have done a much better job at disposing the junk; I mean letters.
ReplyDeleteI sent a letter to NKOTB and never received anything, I'm not traumatized and still love them.
ReplyDeleteDid Taylor not a nswer your letter entward??? Sounds like someones feel good was hurt.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 13 I mailed a letter to Paul McCartney and got an autographed photo back and a membership to his fan club!
ReplyDeleteShe should keep them to read when no one cares about her.
ReplyDeleteI was 12 when JFK was killed - I sent a letter to Jackie and got a card in return - the papers said she personally addressed each one. I've always kept it.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think she kept my letter - I'm sure mine and the millions of others were thrown away - perfectly understandable. What do these people expect? Taylor pastes each one in a scrapbook?
I just don't get what is so shocking about this? The amount of letters she probably gets, it would be hoarder city if she kept them all. What is all the hoopla about?
ReplyDeleteShe must be swamped with fan mail from tweens but I mean come on, tossing it in the dumpster is just tacky. That lazy staffer needs to be fired asap! Give the job to some crazy organizer who will gladly do that shit properly.
ReplyDeleteThere's no way Taylor had anything to do with this. Whoever works for her fan club got lazy and just tossed the letters.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure her fan club members get perks such as autographed photos.
Nothing to see here. Much ado about nothing.
I wrote to Ethan Hawke when I was a teen and received in return a B/W autographed picture of him on the set of White Fang. I still treasure it to this day.
ReplyDeleteBut I think pictures are less common today. Now celebrities have Twitter and Facebook and fans can contact them directly and feel like they're your friend.
Re Taylor, there was no reason for this to happen IMO. If she receives so many, then why not hire more people to handle her fan letters?
I don't like Taylor, but no shock here and no judgment. I can't imagine the mail these celebs get!
ReplyDeleteSusanB---My Grandmother wrote a poem about John and sent it to the family. Bobby Kennedy replied personally, and she framed it & it held a place of honor in her living room the rest of her life.
ReplyDeleteThe letter WAS typed, but hand-signed by Bobby, and you could tell they had actually read her poem & letter.
My grandmother was an obliviously AWFUL poet and painter, btw. So it's not like the poem was that good, the Kennedy family were just that dutiful, it seems, about EVERY letter being answered.
Libby, that is so cool! I'm not big on the Kennedys but that is awesome.
DeleteThanks for sharing the Kennedy stories, SusanB and libby. Nice to know that no matter what else we know about them, they were respectful in that capacity.
ReplyDeleteFun stories from everyone else, too! I'm trying to think of celebs I wrote to as a kid...Gary Coleman (prestamped postcard) and K.I.T.T. (letter and photo signed by William Daniels, which I think was a classy move) come to mind.
I don't expect Taylor to read & respond to every fan letter but it's still rude that her staff just throws them out unopened.Without fans she doesn't have a career.
ReplyDeleteHaha, haven't thought about this in years-I sent a letter to Marcy Walker (Eden on Santa Barbara) when I was in junior high. I didnt get a response back, damnit! LOL
ReplyDeleteI think its good the letters are getting recycled.
I imagine that the staffer who did this will be reprimanded or fired. It's just common sense that if you're not going to open the letters, get an industrial paper shredder and turn them into confetti.
ReplyDeleteIve sent out a few fan letters. I did get a hand written response from colin firth with his picture autographed (around pride and prejudice time)... no not a printed signature.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the level of celebracy if they have time and not too many letters to open.
Give Tay0Tay a break. I think shes a young lady with a lot of pressure to be with a man, to be looking "innocent", to look like she has it all together. which means probably dating people she doesnt like, and not having her own version of fun when she wants.
I think she is doing damm well.
I like to hear that about the Kennedys!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, what's "shocking" about it is how her fans will feel. Look at the picture - someone who takes the time to do that kind of sparkly color work is going to be utterly devastated to find out Taylor didn't personally read, respond and cherish her letter. I say this as a former fan-girl, btw.
Funny story: the couple that counseled and married Thor and I were very close friends of our family. About a month after the wedding, I was housesitting for them when one of their dogs got into the trash and spread it all over the yard. I was picking up all of the trash when I found my long-labored thank you to them for everything they had done *unopened* amongst the trash. I was absolutely devastated.
In hindsight, I can laugh and be thankful I didn't include a gift card. I never mentioned it and we're still friends. Maybe they just didn't like letters. :)
OMG, Izzie, I've been devastated when people don't call me back, when I ask them on a voicemail. I can't imagine finding that letter! I'm easily wounded though. But still! Ouch!
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention the unintended consequence of that letter of acknowledgement from Bobby Kennedy, was that my G-mother used it as a kind of 'endorsement' that she really WAS that good. And many suffered for years as a result. Thankfully we survived all her art.
(#FirstWorldProblem)
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ReplyDeleteWhen I was little, I sent fanmail to Tyne Daly, of all people. I loved Cagney & Lacy. She sent me a personalized 8x10, I'm sure I still have it somewhere.
ReplyDeleteYears later, at a thrift shop, I bought an autographed 8x10 of Ned Beatty ("squeal like a pig!") for a buck, and displayed it proudly on the fridge. People would see it and say "uh, is that the guy from Deliverance...?"
WTF is she SUPPOSED to do? I mean i guess she could recycle. But seriously. "Hates her fans?"
ReplyDelete*edit to say Thor and me, gah, this is my brain off of coffee!!
ReplyDelete@libby, oh yeah, it was hard. I was still on wedding hormones, so that didn't help. :b
I love that story about your grandma! Did she gift you with art and expect to see it hanging on the walls whenever she came over? That was part of a storyline of something I read or watched once - they had this huge, ugly painting that the MIL had done and every time she came over, they had to hang it over the fireplace. One day she comes over without announcing it and there's a Picasso or something hanging there and she destroys it and replaces it with another work of art but doesn't tell them. The artiste's revenge. :b
When I was 15 I told all my classmates that I could get Davy Jones to play the school dance because I was the president of his fan club. Well, my heart was broken when a form letter was sent back and he wasn't going to play at the dance. Luckily my maid knew his maid and she was able to put in an appearance at my house. I'll never wash this cheek again .....
ReplyDeleteHey......isn't that an episode of the Brady Bunch?
DeleteTee hee!
DeleteIzzie--She WOULD gift paintings to her kids! Oh! They were awful, yes, but also heavy-handed trying to BE 'artsy'. A completely orange seascape, with one damn 'w' shaped bird in it....GAH! Just one example.
ReplyDeleteThankfully my dad always insisted on going to THEIR house. But he did keep her painting propped up behind the couch in the non-tv room, for emergency access.
Typically they log the return addys on the envelope, do a daily mail merge, and send out the glossy and a letter. No big whoop. The dumpster thing was tacky, but I don't think too many 8 year old girls had their hearts broken. The heartbroken one this morning is probably the intern that got shit canned for it.
ReplyDeleteSorry...her paintingS, plural. The big ones she gave him.
ReplyDeleteHer obliviousness crippled me in any art field....I drew & painted forever, but I started to worry I was like her, at way too early an age.
Oh my God, that's so sad. All those girls, putting a bunch of time, what little pocket money they have, in to writing to their idol, wanting to make a connection, be friends somehow. She could at least send the glossy, with a thank you. Sure, they "always recycle them." Baloney. For someone that's made so much money off of the psyche and heart break of women, you'd think she'd be a little more grateful and gracious.
ReplyDelete@curlyhairedslacker - Hey hey to one of my fellow Wildcat buddies! :-)
ReplyDeleteMarcy Walker! Talk about a blast from the past. I LOVED "Santa Barbara." Eden and Cruz forever, heheheh! You know she was born in Paducah, right? And she moved and attended high school near me, but many years prior.
@Claritysk - JEALOUS! :-)
@libby - *snort* Bless Grandma's heart. ;-)
LMAO at EmEyeKay and Sugar...
Nobody expects a celeb to read every piece of fan mail they get, but it is not unreasonable to expect that someone will open it and read it, and yes, perhaps even send back an autographed photo or a note. Dumping hundreds of unopened letters is not cool. If Taylor Swift was smart (and I have my doubts), she will announce that the staffer responsible for "disrespecting her fans" was fired. Otherwise, yeah, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those 13-year-old girls...
ReplyDeleteThen again, are we sure it wasn't done by the Post Office? They've thrown out mail before.
ReplyDeleteIt's her management team...not Taylor who threw them away.
ReplyDeleteAlso...if I were Taylor and paying the management team to open fan mail...they should be reading it and then telling her if there was any urgent business. What if there was a sick child's wish to meet Taylor and the letter goes unanswered?
Good one @Sugar!
ReplyDeleteDavy Jones > Desi Arnez Jr.
Delete@AKM: Hi! How 'bout that Florida win? ;) I knew she was from Paducah, I probably would have stalked her if I thought she ever visited (and I was driving at age 14! haha) She is working with youth in North Carolina, and currently on husband #5. Ok, now I gotta look up the girl who played her sister Kelly and the dude that played Robert Barr (?), that slimeball! :)
ReplyDeletehopefully those fans that helped give her $57 million last year will rethink about their love for her
ReplyDeleteand Shakira responds to almost all her letters
ReplyDeleteNobody's going to read this but still - I wrote a letter to this singer I loved when I was 13. This was in 2004, so the singer in question was the winner of my country's IDOL; still a great singer btw, to this day. Anyway I wrote this letter and sent it to his fan club; they said that they would open and read every single letter he received because that's how much he cared about his fans.
ReplyDeleteA couple of years later, in late 2006 I think, I still thought he was great but I was a bit older so naturally my focus had shifted to other things. I have a sister who is 5 years older than me; she is a make-up artist and also she's very beautiful in that way women who smile a lot are beautiful. She was 21 at the time and she met the singer when he was shooting a video for a new single. He took an interest in her and started courting her, taking her out on lavish dates. He was a perfect gentleman (I know right?!!), so he didn't try anything with her, but he was very much all over her every time.
After one of the dates they ended up in his apartment for a last drink. She's told me that his apartment was huge, and all of his platinum discs were hanging on the walls. She was waiting for him in the living room as he went to fix the drinks, and she walked around reading the backs of the books on his shelves. She found an entire section - a long one too - that were books made entirely out of fan mail he had received. They weren't in any particular order, they were just making albums of every single letter he received. She was so surprised, like who does that? So weird and amazing at the same time.
She'd told him I was a huge fan, and when she said my name he knew exactly where my letter was, cause' he had like'd it so much. It's true!! Also my name is kind of exotic and not common at all, so that's how he could've remembered too. Either way he showed my sister my letter and she laughed her ass off and teases me to this day lol. But that's my only time writing fan mail and it was great.
He remembered?! I love that story. I think celebrities were a lot more grateful before. They would at least send pics.
DeleteTwo words for Taylor's management : Iron Mountain.
ReplyDeleteThey can provide secure, locked shred bins for your office.
lol @ sugar!
ReplyDeleteawesome.
@Ivs - what a great story!
ReplyDeleteWell Taylor can give the economy a boost and hire a couple more people to help run her fan club. Hell, she can even hire some teens part time and she won't have to worry about paying bennies!
ReplyDelete@ lvs - Awesome story! What country?
@Mango @Susan B - thanks!! Love that story. And this was in Sweden, by the way!
ReplyDelete@Ivs, that really is a great story.
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not going to blame Taylor personally--there's no way she could deal with even a fraction of her fan mail personally--but clearly someone working for her dropped the ball bigtime. Hire a few more people for letter-opening & logging duty, and call Iron Mountain to see about shredding bins for after the letters have been looked at; problem solved!
ReplyDelete@EmEyeKay, thank you! It's so funny cause' I had actually completely forgotten all about this until just now when I came to this thread and everybody were telling their stories. So glad many of us seemed to have better experiences than some of the poor fans of Taylor Swift!
ReplyDeleteI'm no Swifty fan but what on earth is her team supposed to do with the thousands of letters she gets a day?
ReplyDeleteIt isnt very nice, but prob happens all the time eith celebs. I doubt she threw letters away, prob has service to handle fan mail, and they are the culpable ones.
ReplyDelete@Ivs - that was a very entertaining story... Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAnd Enty please, I get that you hate Taylor, but this is a bit ridiculous...
Yes, what everyone else has said. How many celebs do you think read all but a fraction of their fan mail, if that?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a teenager I sent a letter to leonardo dicaprio and was so excited cause I thought he was going to write me back bu that never happened :-( I wonder if he ever responded to fan mail...
ReplyDeleteHah. The fan letters are thrown away because Swift now wants to be perceived as an "adult" performer. No more shiny unicorns and glitter for the New Taylor, who disses people far more talented than she is in Vanity Fair (because she's "edgy" that way) and has a new, "darker" stage show. Soon she'll be dating and discarding "old" guys past 30, and she won't even be their beards! Daring and adult.
ReplyDeleteUh-huh.
I'm still waiting for Peter Frampton to respond to my love letter.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I totally dislike her this is on her management company. BUT if these are the ones they picked out for ehr to read then it is on her. Usually they will pick out some that they have read that they think she might want to answer either by hand,or an assistant or form letter or with a picture. Then there are those that are so cutely decorated that they think she will enjoy that they send on to her.
ReplyDeleteAfter they are done with they are to be shredded so that other people can't get them and read them, get the addresses and such. You would NEVER believe the things that people send to artists in the fan mail! I don't see Taylor getting those kinds of things thank goodness but I can see those young girls pouring out their hearts to her.
Most artists that of her caliber now employ people to deal with this issue.
Makes no sense to blame Taylor, blame mgmt like many have stated. She is on tour all over the world, how the hell can she receive and read all that mail? Ok that will be my first and last time defending anything Taylor related...
ReplyDeletepoor kids. Now we just tweet all our stars right lol
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, I sent a fan letter to Lindsey Wagner and got an autographed picture back. I was thrilled, even though I realized it was probably organized by her fan club. Do stars not have fan clubs any more to handle all that fan mail?
ReplyDeleteIvs..great story as are all of them about letters to famous people.
ReplyDeleteYep, not Tay Tay's fault. She has a team who does this and someone fell down on the job.
I sent a fan letter to Bobby Heenan back in the mid 80's (I was totally a mark then but I was 9 so it's forgivable lol) and got a letter from him, handwritten thanking me for being one of the few intelligent people that could see through Hulk Hogan. He also sent me a picture of the Heenan Family of the time (Big John Studd, Paul Orndorff, etc.) signed by all of them.
ReplyDeleteThen in the letter he told me not to tell anyone he did it because he didn't want people to think he was a nice guy.
One of the true greats in wrestling.
Hahaha when I was in grade school we had a project. We were to write a letter to a government official. My dad had an ongoing joke when he was on the phone. Hanging up and hearing me ask "Who was that daddy?" he would always reply "The President".
ReplyDeleteSooooo, dutiful me wrote a letter to then President Reagan and informed him I was my father's daughter and thanked him for being such a good friend to him and that I wouldn't mind talking to him over the phone the next time he called.
I remember the day my father came in after picking up the mail and saying "Can you explain to me why you have a package from the Oval Office?" I explained what I had done for school. In the package was a sweet letter thanking me by name and saying that the President was really glad to call my father a friend (form letter stuff, but still kinda personalized) along with information about the White House (again, form letter, describing different rooms and the history) and an autographed photo of Reagan. I still remember the look on my Dad's face :)
It made for a great show and tell.
I sent a letter to the Johnny Carson show once, not really a fan letter, just asking a question about one of the musical performances. They sent my letter back with the answer to my question handwritten on the back, which I thought was pretty cool. :)
ReplyDelete@Rowdy - That is a GREAT story!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of returning mail and presidents, my mother has sent a Christmas card to every president (party never mattered) since my grandmother was alive. The first was FDR. My grandmother started doing it during WWII the year my mother was born, 1944. Every single president sent a Christmas card in return EXCEPT Obama. My mother was so sad.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt it was President Bush's fault
DeleteThey should have shredded them. It's not really good practice to toss someone's personal information in the garbage, especially with all the identity theft. She could probably hire up to 10 people, maybe disabled or elderly who need some extra $ to read and respond. If they are fans, all the better.
ReplyDelete@Ivs & ABlake - LOVED your stories!
ReplyDelete@Henriette - Aww, that's kind of sad! I'm surprised, actually.
The only thing I remember getting back is something from the White House and a signed photo from the cast of Party of Five.
This is NOT Taylor's fault. I don't see how anyone could possibly keep up with it all, unless she just sends out a form letter response, unless the letter is particularly touching. But how could you decide?? I am glad I don't have her job. She really can't win.