Taylor Swift's mother Andrea became emotional as she took to the stand on Wednesday to recall the moment she learned of an alleged assault on her daughter. She told the court that she first heard of the incident after Taylor's concert on 2 June 2013, revealing that her daughter told her in the dressing room after the show: "Mum, a guy just grabbed my ass." Andrea said she then saw the photo that was taken at the time of Taylor with David Mueller and his girlfriend. "I knew there was something horribly wrong with that picture," she said. "I know those eyes better than anybody. She was pulling away. She has that smile frozen on her face, but there's something going on in her eyes. I just looked at it and I was sickened."
Taylor Swift's mum became emotional as she spoke about the alleged assault on her daughter
Andrea described her daughter as being "really shaken, she was humiliated, she was horribly embarrassed". She added: "She couldn't believe that after the incident, she thanked him for being there. She said 'Thank you'. It was destroying her. It made me question why, as a parent, I had encouraged her to be so polite."
Of her own reaction, Andrea she felt "upset to the point of feeling like I wanted to vomit and cry at the same time". She also explained that they did not involve the police following the alleged assault because they "did not want this event to define her life". "I did not want every interview from now on to have to make her include what happened to her," Andrea stated. "I did not want her to live through the endless memes and GIFs that tabloid media and internet trolls would come up with. We absolutely wanted to keep this private, but we didn't not want him to get away with it. He sexually assaulted her."
Taylor and Andrea have a famously close relationship
Andrea also told the court that the incident had changed the way Taylor's team approached meet-and-greets. "It's absolutely shattered our trust," she said. "Our meet-and-greets are much smaller. We have metal detectors. We do background checks. It scared us really badly."