Taylor Swift Wrote a Love Song Inspired by Ethel Kennedy’s Romance with Robert F. Kennedy

The pop star explained in 2012 that she was inspired to write a song after seeing a vintage photo of Ethel and Bobby dancing

Taylor Swift once wrote a song inspired by the love story between Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel Kennedy.

Ethel (née Skakel), who died from stroke complications on Oct. 10 at the age of 96, played an important role in the Kennedy dynasty. She was the matriarch of Bobby’s branch of the family, raising several of his children, and she dedicated her career to carrying on her husband’s human rights activism after he was assassinated.

Swift has been known to reference historical figures in her music, and her 2012 love song “Starlight” was written with Ethel and Bobby in mind.

The pop star explained how she ended up writing a song about the Kennedys in a 2012 interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying, “I get a lot of style inspiration from the 1960s, so I’ll go and look at black and white pictures, and look at [photos from the] ’50s and ’60s, and I came across this picture of these two kids dancing at a dance.”

“It immediately made me think of like how much fun they must have had that night. It was back in the late ’40s,” continued Swift, who was dating Ethel’s grandson Conor Kennedy at the time. “I ended up reading underneath that it was Ethel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. … So I just kind of wrote that song from that place, not really knowing how they met or anything like that.”

In the song, Swift tells the story of teenagers meeting, falling in love and dancing the night away like they were “made of starlight.”

The song is written from Ethel’s perspective, directly referencing RFK in a line that says, “I met Bobby on the boardwalk, summer of ’45 / Picked me up, late one night at the window / We were seventeen and crazy, running wild, wild.”

Swift’s imagination colored in the details of their love story — the couple actually met in the winter of 1945, when Ethel was 17 and Bobby was 20 — but it tells a similar enough tale.

During the bridge of the song, Swift foreshadowed how Ethel and Bobby’s relationship panned out, singing, “Ooh, ooh, he’s talking crazy / Ooh, ooh, dancing with me / Ooh, ooh, we could get married / Have ten kids and teach ’em how to dream.”

In real life, the couple did get married in 1950 and had 11 children, creating the largest branch of the Kennedy family tree.

Many of their kids learned to dream big, as evidenced by their own political careers and advocacy efforts. Their oldest, Kathleen Kennedy, served as Maryland’s lieutenant governor; their son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ran for president in 2024; and their daughter Kerry Kennedy serves as president of RFK Human Rights, a nonprofit that Ethel founded in Bobby’s name.

Swift told WSJ that before “Starlight” was publicly released, Ethel’s youngest daughter, Rory Kennedy, came to one of her shows. “I told [Rory] about the song,” Swift recalled, “and she was like, ‘You have to meet my mom. She would love to meet you.’ ”

Ethel’s married life was cut short when RFK was assassinated in 1968 while running for president. She never remarried, and previously told PEOPLE that she relied heavily on her faith to get through the pain.

“I didn’t think how I would survive,” she said. “I knew it would happen but I didn’t know how.”

Bobby’s death was not the first, or last, tragedy she would face. Ethel’s parents — George and Ann Skakel — died in a 1955 plane crash, and her brother-in-law John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

She outlived two of her own children. Her son David Kennedy died of a drug overdose in 1984 in Palm Beach, Fla. Her son Michael Kennedy died in 1997, when he skied into a tree while playing touch football in Aspen, Colo.

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She lost her beloved nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a 1999 plane crash, which also killed his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and her sister, Lauren. Her daughter-in-law, Mary Richardson Kennedy (then the wife of RFK Jr.) killed herself by hanging on May 16, 2012.

On Aug. 1, 2019, she lost her granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy due to an accidental drug overdose. And in the spring of 2020, her granddaughter Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and great-grandson Gideon McKean were found dead after they went missing while canoeing days earlier.

Ethel’s children shared a statement on Oct. 10, revealing that their family matriarch had died days after she suffered a stroke.

“Along with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the statement read.

It continued: “She was a devout Catholic and daily communicant, and we are comforted in knowing that she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert F. Kennedy; her children David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse; and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie.”