Swift can’t seem to shake off the public focus on her private jetsetting.
For years, Taylor Swift has been subject to intense public criticism for her private jet usage. Now, her legal team is embroiled in a public scandal with a college student, Jack Sweeney, who has helped to keep the public informed of her flights.
According to The Washington Post, which first broke the story, Swift’s legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter to Sweeney in December. By tracking and then sharing the movement of her private jet, they said, Sweeney was allegedly giving “individuals intent on harming her, or with nefarious or violent intentions, a roadmap to carry out their plans.” Sweeney shared the cease-and-desist letter with The Post this week.
Sweeney is a junior at the University of Central Florida. He runs numerous social media accounts that track the takeoffs and landings of dozens of private jets owned by celebrities like Swift as well as billionaires, oligarchs, and other public figures. Even though the data Sweeney uses is publicly accessible, thanks in part to the Federal Aviation Administration, Swift’s legal team is insisting that Sweeney is assisting her stalkers in tracking her down.
The news of this legal battle regarding Swift’s travel couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time: Swift is set to perform in Tokyo the night before the Super Bowl, and everyone’s wondering whether she’ll jet over to Las Vegas the next day to watch her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, compete in the final game of the season. If she does, the roundtrip journey will cause 14 times the carbon emissions that the average American household emits in one whole year, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Associated Press reports.
Taylor Swift’s legal team accuses a student of offering her stalkers “a roadmap to carry out their plans”
In the cease-and-desist letter sent to Sweeney, one of Swift’s lawyers, Katie Wright Morrone, wrote, “While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our Client.” She went on to allege that there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”
If Sweeney didn’t stop sharing Swift’s private jet data, the letter said, Swift’s legal team would “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies.”
To The Post, Sweeney said he thinks the letter was sent to him to try to dissuade him from sharing public data — and that Swift’s legal team was sensitive to the ongoing criticism she has received for her carbon footprint. “This information is already out there,” he said. “Her team thinks they can control the world.”
Sweeney also told The Post that shortly after he received the letter from her legal team, his social accounts monitoring her travel activity were removed from Instagram and Facebook.
Why Taylor Swift has received so much flack for her private jet usage
Swift is by no means the only person on planet Earth who exclusively flies private — but she may fly private more frequently than most. At least, that’s what a report by data and marketing agency Yard alleged in 2022, which was punnily titled “Just Plane Wrong: Celebs With the Worst Private Jet CO2 Emissions.”
In that report, which tracked public records of private jet usage, Swift was the worst offender, with her plane having totaled 170 flights in the first seven months of 2022. The authors of the report wrote, “Taylor’s jet has an average flight time of just 80 minutes and an average of 139.36 miles per flight. Her total flight emissions for the year come in at 8,293.54 tons, or 1,184.8 times more than the average person’s total annual emissions. Taylor’s shortest recorded flight of 2022 was just 36 minutes, flying from Missouri to Nashville.”
In response to that report, a spokesperson for the performer called the data “blatantly incorrect,” arguing that “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals.”
This week, in response to the release of the cease-and-desist, Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, said that Swift buys carbon credits to offset her footprint. The purchasing of “carbon credits” is frequently referenced by celebrities and corporations to justify their carbon footprint. Climate experts continue to denounce the practice as virtually “bogus.”
Swift hasn’t responded herself, but our self-aware anti-hero might say, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”
