7 years before she ‘broke the internet,’ Taylor Swift called out a dying girl from Mount Greenwood

Do the math: 3.5 billion requests for 2 million tickets?

Things are bound to go wrong.

But ugly is an understatement for the millions of fans who spent hours trying to secure pre-sale tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras tour, only to be frozen, dumped or kicked out to the back of the queue, their only recourse. to spend thousands more on resale sites. .

On Friday, the 11-time Grammy winner opened up about last week’s Live Nation/Ticketmaster debacle on “Blank Space.”

“There are a multitude of reasons why people have had such a hard time getting tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved in the future,” she posted on Instagram.

Among the fans who take her to his side in the nightmare are the Mount Greenwood Beazleys.

Although Ed and Nadia Beazley weren’t caught up in the buying spree for the June gigs in Chicago, they remain abiding fans of the ‘kind and caring’ pop star who took the time, despite his job busy time, to call their late daughter Emily just weeks away. before dying of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2015.

The couple and their youngest daughter Olivia, now a student at Marist High School, are lifers in the fan department, Nadia said.

“Taylor Swift is a class act,” Nadia said, just hours after the singer released her statement. “Imagine breaking a website because you’re so wanted. Her fans mean everything to her. She’s like all celebrities should be.

In her post-chaos statement, Swift said, “I’m not going to excuse anyone because we asked them, repeatedly, if they could handle this type of request and we were assured that they would. could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that so many of them feel like they’ve suffered multiple bear attacks to get them.

“And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to give us more opportunities to come together and sing these songs.

“Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea what that means.

Nadia said she didn’t know how Emily, who was 12 when she died, became such a huge Swift fan, embracing her hits “Shake It Off” and “Love Story.”

“She was so into it, for so long. I think she thought Taylor was like all the other girls, like someone who lived on the streets,” Nadia said.

“Emily would close her eyes and just sing these songs. She really felt it, you could tell. She would wrinkle her nose, squint her eyes,” Nadia said.

And now Ed, Nadia and Olivia are doing the same for many new Swift songs. Their favorites are the 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” which Nadia says is great motivation to clean the house.

And, of course, she said, “Love Story” will always have a special place in their hearts, just like in Emily’s.

It was during their eldest daughter’s final weeks, as doctors did their best to keep the girl comfortable, that Swift’s publicists called the now-retired Chicago police detective. Ed Beazley’s phone.

Ed would take Emily to “comfort” radiation treatments whenever he could, while Nadia stayed home to pick up Olivia from school.

The regular sessions had become a sort of father-daughter outing, after which the two would head to the mall for Cinnabons.

But when Emily picked up the phone that day, she asked if the singer would call back later.

“She lied and said she was about to get radiation, even though she was already done with it,” Nadia said. “She did this because she wanted Olivia and I to be there for the call. She wanted us all to have that moment, that memory.

And the already mega-popular Swift complied.

The family was in the car when the call came back. Thanks to Bluetooth, everyone could listen.

Nadia said she saw her confident and smart pre-teen daughter melt away during the conversation. But she managed to get Swift’s attention to her little sister.

Swift seemed to know a lot about the family, Nadia recalled.

“She couldn’t have been nicer,” Nadia said. “And Emily was completely starstruck.”

Nadia, who works for a law firm in South Holland, said the family continue to listen to Swift’s music because they like it and because they feel closer to Emily. They saw Swift when she came to Chicago on her last tour.

“We will never forget who she was for our family,” Nadia said. “She gave my daughter her last wish. She was so nice. It’s no surprise that she sells out shows. We always thought she was a superstar.

Ed now works as an investigator for Comcast. The Beazleys continue their mission to raise funds for childhood cancer research and recently renewed funding for two cancer trials. And Olivia, a member of the National Honor Society, has her sights set on becoming a dentist or a pharmacist.

donnavickroy4@gmail.com

Donna Vickroy is an award-winning journalist, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years.