Taylor Swift’s Favorite Teacher, Later Her Bodyguard, Died The Day She Married Travis Kelce
Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images Sports via Getty Images
By 
Nadia Santiago
Kirk Schwabe taught criminal justice at Hendersonville High School in the mid-2000s, and one of his young students was Taylor Swift, who he has long called the most fun class he ever took. He thought enough of her to name the teacher character “Mr. Schwabe” in the 2010 film “Valentine’s Day.”
A few years later he returned to his life in a different role, he joined his security team in 2009 at the request of his father and ended up being his bodyguard. Her family says she treated her like one of her daughters. Schwabe died on July 3 at the age of 69, after a battle with kidney cancer, the same day Swift married Travis Kelce.
Before overseeing a Taylor Swift concert, Kirk Schwabe stood in front of a classroom at Hendersonville High School outside of Nashville. He was a Chicago police officer teaching criminal justice, and in the mid-2000s a young Swift sat in his class. He always says it was the most fun class he’s ever taken, and fans have long tied that excitement to songs like “No Body, No Crime.” In 2010, he named a teacher actor after himself, Mr. Schwabe, in the movie “Valentine’s Day.”
Around 2009, her father Scott Swift asked Schwabe to help take care of his daughter, and Schwabe quit teaching to join his security detail, eventually becoming her bodyguard. He later retired from work, tired of the pace, but stayed close to his family. His wife, Jane, told The Telegraph that she always treated Swift the way she treated her daughters.
Schwabe died on July 3 at the age of 69, of kidney cancer, after a rapid decline that had landed him in the hospital a few days earlier. It was the same day Swift married Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden. In an interview with The Telegraph shortly before his death, he talked about his marriage, calling her a star and simply saying, “You know what’s best.”
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