Taylor Swift was already close to Ethel Kennedy before meeting the Kennedy family matriarch.

Ethel Kennedy, married to Robert F. Kennedy, died Oct. 10 from complications related to a stroke she suffered last week, her grandson, Rep., wrote. Joe Kennedy III, in a statement about X. She was 96.

The mother of 11 was the inspiration for Swift’s song “Starlight,” which appears on Swift’s 2012 album “Red.” There is also a “Starlight (Taylor’s Version)” from the 2021 re-recording, “Red (Taylor’s Version).”

In 2012, the pop star explained how a black-and-white photo of two people from decades ago inspired her to write the upbeat love song.

“I get a lot of style inspiration from the 1960s, so I start looking at black and white photos and (photos from) the 1950s and 1960s,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “And I came across this photo of these two kids dancing at a dance. I immediately thought of how much fun they must have had that evening. It was the late 1940s.”

As Swift continued to look at the photo, she learned more about the couple in the picture.

“I finally read underneath that it was Ethel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. And they were about 17 (Robert was born on November 20, 1925, Ethel on April 11, 1928),” she said. “So I just wrote that song from that place, not really knowing how they met or anything like that. And then her daughter Rory came to a show a few weeks later and I told her about the song and she said, ‘You have to meet my mom. She’d like to meet you.’ So that’s kind of what that song was about. ‘Swift and Ethel Kennedy would meet and later pose together at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2012 in Park City, Utah.

That same year, Swift was reportedly romantically linked to a Kennedy. The singer had a relationship with Conor Kennedy, the grandson of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy, in the summer of 2012.

The pair were photographed together several times but remained tight-lipped about their relationship.

“I don’t talk about my personal life in detail. I write about it in my songs, and I feel like you can share enough about your life in your music to let people know what you’re going through,” she told Glamor in 2012 when asked about her relationship with Conor Kennedy. Some fans have speculated that “Begin Again” is about the romance between her and Conor Kennedy.

The magazine also told Swift how Ethel Kennedy said she would be “so lucky” to have her as a granddaughter.

‘She’s fantastic. I love her,” she replied.