Taylor Swift’s Feisty Fourth of July

Before Taylor Swift was famous, she celebrated her Independence Days in New Jersey.  

“I spent my summers at the Jersey Shore,” she told me. “There was a Fourth of July parade, and we lived on the bay. All these boats would pass our house and we would try to hit them with water balloons with a slingshot.”

Did she ever hit them?

“All the time! It was a yacht club parade, so all the elite were dressed in their best. We would try to hit them with water balloons.”

The Hills star Doug Reinhardt fondly recalls getting sporty on the Fourth.

“My best was a couple years ago, playing baseball,” he says. “The crowd was getting rowdy and crazy. Some of the stuff I was hearing when I was out on the field was entertaining.”

Jonas star Chelsea Staub smiles when she remembers a fireworks incident on the Fourth.

“My grandma has this cabin up in Magnus, Colorado,” she says. “It’s such a small town it only has one stoplight. They try to put on their own fireworks show, but they don’t have the manpower to shoot the fireworks high enough into the sky, so 90% of the fireworks explode right on top of us. Trees are catching on fire and things are literally going up into flames during the Fourth of July. Then, the fire department shoots off a firework and then they spend the next ten minutes extinguishing whatever that firework set on fire and they play John Wayne’s That’s America over and over on repeat. It’s hysterical. It’s a very small and patriotic town. I love it.”

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Here’s my pic with Taylor Swift:

Additional reporting by Rachel Levine.