Taylor Swift testified on the fourth day of her civil trial versus David Mueller, the former radio host she accused of groping her while posing for a photo in 2013. In a Denver courtroom on Thursday, Swift described the contact as “a definite grab, [a] very long grab.”
Mueller was fired from his job at KYGO a few days after the incident. In 2015, he filed a lawsuit against Swift for $3 million in damages, claiming false accusations. Swift followed with a countersuit.
Swift took the stand on Thursday and testified that the alleged grab “was long enough for me to be completely sure it was intentional.” Swift also stated, “He stayed on my bare ass cheek as I lurched away from him uncomfortably. The first couple of milliseconds, I thought it must be a mistake. I moved to the side very quickly.”
According to Swift’s testimony, she, Mueller, and his girlfriend Shannon Melcher posed for a photo during a meet-and-greet in which, Swift said, both appeared intoxicated. Swift claims that Mueller reached under her skirt and grabbed her during the photo op. After Mueller and Melcher left the room, Swift said, she told her assistant, “Dude, that guy just grabbed my ass.” In court, Swift described the encounter with Mueller as “horrifying” and “shocking.”
Mueller’s lawyer M. Gabriel McFarland asked Swift whether she was “critical” of her then bodyguard, Greg Dent, for not intervening. Swift responded, “No, I am critical of your client for sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my bare ass.” She added, “What Mr. Mueller did was, like I said, very intentional, and the location was very intentional. And I wasn’t going to blame Greg Dent…none of us expected this to happened [sic]. It had never happened before.”
ABC’s Denver affiliate reports:
“I’ve experienced every degree of an awkward first encounter,” Swift says, saying usually, she and the other person apologize and laugh afterward. She says that didn’t happen.
“He did not touch my rib, he did not touch my arm…he grabbed my bare ass, Swift says.
After the incident, Swift said, “A light switched off in my personality. I just said in a monotone voice, ‘Thank you for coming.’”
A BuzzFeed reporter’s dispatches:
During her testimony on Wednesday, Swift’s mom Andrea Swift recalled being “upset to the point of feeling like I wanted to vomit and cry at the same time” after she found out about the incident. She said her daughter was “really shaken, she was humiliated, she was horribly embarrassed.”
In previous opening statements, Swift’s lawyer Doug Baldridge argued that Mueller’s “motivation is money, calling attention to himself, and getting revenge on his boss.” Mueller has already testified and was cross examined, during which he denied the groping happened and said the accusation has “cost me my career, the thing I love to do...I want to clear my name.”