Over the years, Taylor Swift has narrowly avoided fates worse than death at the hands of numerous stalkers. Though they were thankfully stopped in their tracks, it’s chilling to think about what could have happened.
In 2018, Eric Swarbrick sent dozens of violent letters to the pop star's former label, Big Machine Records — letters that eventually led to federal charges. Now, his brother is breaking his silence in Stalking the Stars, the final episode of Hollywood Demons, airing April 28 on ID.
“My brother believed Taylor Swift was his soulmate, and it got out of hand,” Matthew Swarbrick says in the new doc, per Entertainment Weekly. “He wrote 40 letters to Taylor Swift… The first one is not threatening, just strange.”
But the tone soon turned dark. One letter read: “I’ll have one goal in mind, to push Taylor to kill herself for knowingly abandoning me.” Another threatened, “I want to rape Taylor Swift… This is how I know I am Taylor’s soulmate.”
Eric was arrested after personally delivering letters to Big Machine’s Nashville office. He pleaded guilty to interstate stalking in 2019 and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Matthew recalls his brother’s downward spiral starting in college: “Some of the isolation eventually got to him.”
He says Eric is now seeing a psychiatrist and has improved: “He’s very playful and interactive with my kids.”
Despite Eric’s sentencing, stalking remains a constant threat for Swift. “You get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things,” she told Elle in 2019.
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