Garten learned to play beer pong at Swift’s 1989 World Tour — with Abby Wambach as her advisor
Ina Garten lived out a true Swiftie fantasy: partying backstage with Taylor Swift.
The Barefoot Contessa star detailed the special concert moment during an interview with Wall Street Journal as the October issue cover star.
“I’m crazy about Taylor Swift,” said Ina while promoting her new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. “After the show, she invited us to go to a party that she gave for all of the crew. And my friend Kate said, ‘Let’s go play beer pong!'”
The video interview, part of WSJ’s “The One” series, doesn’t specify which tour this was during, but Garten does give some clues.
“As we went over there Abby Wambach — who had just won the World Cup Championship for soccer — came over to me and said, I’m going to be your advisor,” she recalled.
Wambach and the U.S. women’s national soccer team won the World Cup in 2015 — the same year Swift was on the road for her 1989 World Tour. The winning team joined Swift in New Jersey on stage for “Style” to celebrate their victory.
Garten says Wambach gave her some wise words that night. “She said, ‘Get the f—ing ball in the f—ing cup!’” laughed Garten, “and I was like, ‘That’s your advice?’”
When asked if she had played beer pong before or since and if she played well, Garten gave the same answer to all three questions: “No!”
In April, Garten told PEOPLE that she, just like other Swifties, had to go great lengths to get tickets to the pop star’s Eras Tour.
“I’m going to be in Paris in May, and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, isn’t she going to be in Paris in May?'” Garten said. “At 3:00 in the morning, I was online, seeing if I could get two good tickets, and I did.”
Garten didn’t end up getting to wear her sparkly outfit as planned, as she got sick right before the concert, she later told PEOPLE.
Garten and Swift first met over a decade ago.
“I met Taylor actually when Food Network Magazine asked rock stars 10 years ago who their favorite Food Network people were, and Taylor chose me,” Garten recalled. “So she came for a photo shoot for the day, and then we saw each other for a while afterwards. She invited me to lunch and she came back for lunch one day in East Hampton. I just so admire her.”
The admiration goes both ways as Swift has detailed her love for Garten over the years.
“My most potent memories of Ina come from when I first discovered her TV show,” Swift said in October 2022 for the Food Network Magazine’s celebration of Barefoot Contessa’s 20th anniversary. “I was in my teens, and my life revolved around touring. On my rare days off at home, I barely ever cooked because it had always felt like a chore.”
The “All Too Well” singer went on to say that “watching Ina prepare a meal changed my perspective on cooking and reframed it as something relaxing.”
“She made cooking feel like self-care,” Swift added. “Ever since, cooking has been my escape from stress and one of the only ways I can truly calm myself on a rough day. I’ll always be grateful to her for giving me that.”
The October issue of the Wall Street Journal Magazine is available now.