John Calipari may have conquered the college basketball world, but he says he was too intimidated to talk to Taylor Swift when he got the chance at a New York Knicks game this year.
In an interview on Friday (October 15) CBS Sports College BasketballThe University of Arkansas coach recalled attending Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden and noticing that the pop star was also in the building. “Taylor Swift was there,” he said. “I was shy to go near him.”
Coach Kail further added that the 14-time Grammy winner was just a few feet away from him while chatting with Adam Sandler and his wife. despite knowing happy Gilmore Starr, a Basketball Hall of Famer, said he was “intimidated” by the contact.
“She came over and was bubbly, and then I’m sitting here at this table,” he said. “He’s on the other end… I took my phone and I acted like I was on my phone, and I wasn’t on my phone, but I acted like I was.”
To underscore how big of a deal this was, Calipari also shared that the last time he met Barack Obama, he felt almost starstruck by the powerful man — and even then, he had no problem shaking the president’s hand.
Swift notably attended two Knicks games this year. She first went with her then-fiancé Travis Kelce to the New York team’s away game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in May. Just a few weeks later, she cheered on the Knicks – who won the NBA Finals – at MSG, sitting next to Mariska Hargitay and Estes and Alana Haim.
Less than a month after that, Swift would return to MSG for her wedding, which Sandler officiated. Pop Star is now fresh from her release The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore Deluxe, which gave him his 16th career No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Patient Zero”.
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