Long ago, Taylor Swift left her teardrops on her guitar. Now, she’s leaving her signature on them — and helping raise money for important causes.
On Monday, Toby Keith and Friends revealed that a guitar signed by the singer sold for $120,000 at their 2023 OK Kids Korral auction, which supports children facing cancer. The guitar was the top fundraiser of the items sold. Overall, the program raised $1.8 million for the program, which provides free housing for families with kids battling cancer.
Among the other auctioned items were a personal dinner with Keith, which sold for $70,000, and a fishing trip with the singer, which went for $80,000. Another signed guitar — with signatures from the likes of Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, and others — garnered $44,000.
The action also included memorabilia from athletes, including Bengals’ Joe Burrow, Warriors’ Steph Curry, and Tiger Woods. There were also smaller donations from companies such as Ashley Furniture, Travis McIntyre, and others.
In December, a guitar from Swift’s Midnights recording sessions was put up for auction to benefit the 12 Drummers Drumming event for the Raven Drum Foundation, which was founded by Def Leppard’s Rick Allen. The organization raises funds for veterans and first responders dealing with PTSD. The final bid was for $12,500, according to the 12 Drummers’ website.
Earlier this year, Swift donated another acoustic guitar for auction to benefit MusiCares Charity Relief, which aims to support musicians in financial and medical crises. The guitar was decorated with images from her Evermore era and was set to sell for as much as $10,000, according to iHeartRadio.
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The $120,000 auction sale comes about a week before she’s set to release her re-recorded version of Speak Now, which includes the John Mayer-aimed “Dear John.”
“I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote,” Swift said to discourage any cyberbullying. “So what I’m trying to tell you that I’m not putting this album out so you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”
