Taylor Swift Has Always Been Super Nice, A Heartwarming Stephen Colbert Story About A 2009 Meeting Proves

It seems like Taylor Swift is always doing or saying something nice, and based on a story Stephen Colbert recently told, it appears she’s been that way for a long time.

In a web-exclusive video filmed during the taping of last night’s episode of The Late Show, Colbert talks to his bandleader and 2022 Grammys hero Jon Batiste about his experience at the annual Pre-Grammy Gala before offering his own story from years ago. Colbert doesn’t explicitly nail down the timeline but it would seem he’s talking about the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in 2009, given he notes it happened during his first year as a nominee and his first Grammy nod came in 2009 — in Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Story Telling) for I Am America (And So Can You!).

He starts his story by saying, “I’ll love Taylor Swift ’til the day that I die and I would put on armor and follow her into battle.” He notes Swift, at a point in her career when she was “just beginning to be a big deal,” was across the room. His then-14-year-old daughter notices and Colbert saw an in for an introduction, given that Swift has recently sent him a letter with a copy of her then-new album, Speak Now.

So, Colbert and his daughter approached Swift. Colbert continues:

“I just say, ‘Taylor, hi! Stephen Colbert, thanks so much for the album, I really appreciate it. Can I introduce my daughter’ And Madeline’s wearing this little, you know, sweet, young, teenage, little blue dress, and Taylor of course looks like just… a queen. And she turns around, she goes, ‘Oh! pretty girl,’ and comes and puts her arms around her and goes, ‘Oh my god, oh you look amazing!’ And she just praises my daughter for how she looks [for] 30 seconds. ‘I’m so glad you like the music and let me send you…’ and I would jump off a cliff into a pit of spikes for that woman, for how nice she was to my daughter.”

Watch Colbert tell the story above.