The friendship between Gracie Gold and Taylor Swift was sparked with this tweet:
Gold, who had just won Olympic bronze in the Sochi team event, reacted on Twitter with what almost any teenager would say. “Is this real life?!!”
Gold, now 19, said she noticed a couple of days after Swift’s original tweet that the singer followed her on Twitter.
“I was, of course, already following her,” Gold said of Swift on Tuesday.
Gold sent a direct message to Swift, thanking her for the tweet and the follow.
“You’re essentially my hero and music idol,” Gold says now.
One DM led to another, and Swift sent Gold her phone number. They began texting. Both Californians, they went out to dinner. They baked cookies at Swift’s home in New York. Swift visited Gold and other Olympic skaters at the Stars on Ice tour.
“It’s kind of surreal, because it’s Taylor Swift, like the No. 1 female of 2014 with ‘1989,’” Gold said, referencing Swift’s latest chart-topping album.
Last Thursday, Swift texted Gold, inviting her on a group day trip to Santa Catalina Island, just off the California coast.
“I said, duh, of course I’d love to,” said Gold, who was free after a morning skating session in preparation for the U.S. Championships next week.
They yachted, ate lunch and had ice cream cones. Then they went back to Los Angeles to hang out.
“It was just one of those whimsical things,” Gold said. “Just a casual text from Taylor Swift, no biggie.”
Ashley Wagner, unshaken by 2014, out to reclaim U.S. title
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