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A heartwarming neighborhood video went viral, attracting the attention of nearly four million viewers – including Taylor Swift.
Last month, eight-year-old Swiftie Madeline noticed her neighbor Ethan Hayes spending his afternoons playing guitar and singing. The moment was captured on video and went viral on TikTok. Madeline’s mother, Natalie Hulec, told People that her daughter was too shy to speak to Hayes directly – so she came up with another solution. With the help of her parents, she asked him via paper airplane to play a song from Swift’s repertoire, threw him over the fence and made him sing “Love Story.”
Swift saw the clip and sent Madeline and her neighbor a special gift. The singer sent the girl a signed guitar and a handwritten letter telling her the video “put the biggest smile on her face,” the magazine reports.
Swift’s letter to Madeline
“I just wanted to tell you that it made me so happy that you asked your neighbor to play my song for you,” Swift wrote in her message to Madeline, which arrived with a signed Taylor Swift acoustic guitar. “You put the biggest smile on my face. I’ll send you your own guitar if you want to learn it too!”
The TikTok video now has almost 500,000 likes and 3.7 million views. “I’m pretty sure we hit the neighbor jackpot,” her mom wrote in the caption.
Hayes himself said the “Fearless” track was “one that I always have on hand,” adding that he, too, received a guitar from Swift. “I was expecting maybe a signed poster or something. And then she sends us guitars – that’s crazy.”
Career boost through virality
Hayes also emphasized that the viral video helped his music career. “I gained thousands of new followers, which is obviously great,” he said. “We haven’t seen a single negative comment, which I think is really rare – just a really beautiful situation that I’m very grateful to be a part of.”
