Featured Image Credit: Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management/ Metro Police Department
Topics: Crime, Taylor Swift, Celebrity, US News
Britt Jones
Topics: Crime, Taylor Swift, Celebrity, US News
Taylor Swift once had a terrifying stalker, and the letters he wrote for her are chilling.
Pop stars are beloved people and droves of fans will try to do anything to meet them or to be around them - but one man took his obsession to the next level.
Back in 2018, it was uncovered that Swift became the victim of Eric Swarbrick’s delusions, which began as unsettling and then ended with incredible menace and violent threats.
It only came to light when Swift's former record label, Big Machine Label Group, reported having received many letters to the musician which worried them that Swarbrick was apprehended.
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The man was 26 years old at the time of his 2019 court hearing, where he pleaded guilty to stalking and sending communications with the intent to threaten Swift.
His horrifying story was broadcasted on 'Stalking the Stars', an episode of the Hollywood Demons series which will be airing on Investigation Discovery on 28 April.
His brother Matthew Swarbrick revealed all to the cameras and painted the story of how his brother ended up being a scary celebrity stalker.
Matthew said: "My brother believed Taylor Swift was his soulmate, and it got out of hand. He wrote 40 letters to Taylor Swift back in 2018. The first one is not threatening, just strange."
However, just months later, his letters became more and more bizarre, with one stating, 'I'll have one goal in mind, to push Taylor to kill herself for knowingly abandoning me to my mother.'
Matthew shared that Eric was well-liked in school and was ‘outgoing’ and ‘popular’, but after he enrolled in college, he was isolated, in an unfamiliar area and ‘didn't know a lot of people’.
He said: “I feel like he started spending more time by himself. Some of the isolation eventually got to him."
His brother thinks that this was what began his path, as after graduating, he began to write tweets about an unnamed ‘soulmate’ in which he called himself a ‘prophet of God’ and was ‘becoming the Antichrist’.
Initially, Eric began to write to Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta where he would beg to meet Swift, but then his anger became palpable.
In one letter, he wrote: "I will not hesitate to kill her, and there's nothing you, your lawyers, or the law will be about to do about it. Remember who I am.”
Another stated another chilling threat: "I want to rape Taylor Swift. This is why I hate Taylor herself... This is how I know I am Taylor's soulmate."
Eric then began to deliver the letters to the HQ himself, leading to him being arrested in August 2018 before being released.
Then, after delivering a third letter in September, he was arrested by national police in Travis County, Texas and charged with interstate stalking and sending interstate communications with intent to threaten.
Eric pleaded guilty in 2019, and was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
To this, Matthew shared: "It was sad, it was depressing. There are some people that need punishment and some people that need treatment. I certainly wish he was taken to a mental health hospital earlier than they did."
However, now that he has been released, his brother shared that Eric is doing better.
But this isn’t the first time Swift has had to deal with stalkers as in 2019, David Liddle was arrested near Swift's home with a bag containing a crowbar, an aluminium baseball bat, lock picks, and rubber gloves.
That same year, Roger Alvarado was arrested after attempting to break into one of her homes for a third time, and in 2022, Joshua Christian was charged with criminal trespassing and stalking Swift.