Este Haim's a friend of Taylor Swift's. They meet up every Wednesday night for dinner and a truly wild basketball game.
And they, along with Este's sister Alana Haim, and the other 20,000 fans squeezed into Madison Square Garden weren't letting up until Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and the rest of the New York Knicks sealed their astonishing come-from-behind victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the NBA Finals June 10.
The trio filled in the blank space on the arena's famed celebrity row, claiming a spot between courtside regulars Mariska Hargitay and Ben Stiller. And because it was simply impossible to calm down, they danced, posed and cheered the squad to a comeback victory straight out of Knicks fan's wildest dreams—all while wearing some very pun-y tees.
But how exactly did Swift decide she belonged with the musically-inclined sisters (together with lead vocalist Danielle Haim, they make up Grammy-nominated rock band HAIM)? That's a tale that Swifties know all too well.
It all began at MTVU's now-defunct Woodie Awards in March 2013. Swift's romance with Harry Styles had officially gone out of style and the sisters—preparing to release their debut disc Days Are Gone—were asked about who she should romance next.
"T.T. Swift, don't date someone else," Alana responded. "Come out with us, and we will party, and we will be together as girls and be merry, and we don't need guys. Girl power."
She started following the group on social media, meaning she spied their October 2014 tweet praising her 1989 track "This Love," responding, "this tweet made me so happy, I forgot for a minute that I'm up at 5am and just did a little awkward celebratory dance. As I do."
Este, Alana and Danielle made the cut—along with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Selena Gomez and Justin Timberlake—to attend Swift's star-studded 25th birthday bash in December 2014 and sailed off into the sunset during a girls' trip to California's Catalina island weeks later.
And the foursome also mixed some business in with the pleasure.
In between award show hangs, trips to Hawaii and joint birthday parties, HAIM signed on as the opening act for select dates of Swift's 1989 World Tour, played her stepsisters in her 2022 "Bejeweled" video and collaborated on "no body, no crime" off of Swift's surprise 2020 release evermore.
"I wrote a pretty dark murder mystery song and had named the character Este, because she's the friend I have who would be stoked to be in a song like that," Swift later explained to Entertainment Weekly. Asking her to weigh in on the chain restaurant that would host their fictional weekly dinners ("She chose Olive Garden"), Swift then sent over the lyrics and asked her to collab. As she recounted, "It was an immediate 'YES.'"
In fact, she continued, 'We can't figure out why we hadn't collaborated sooner. We've toured together, played live together, choreographed dances like we're at summer camp, but it took a song about avenging your friend's murder to give us the idea to take this step. Long story short, I'm the 4th Haim sister now, confirmed."
So naturally she was on hand in July 2022 when the trio played in London, joining them to sing a remix of "Gasoline," plus her beloved "Love Story."
Coming off of 2018's Reputation Tour, "I haven't been on stage in a very long time," Swift told the crowd. "When I heard my girls were playing in London at the O2, I thought, 'I'm going to have to see that.' And it looks like there's about 20,000 other people who also thought that."
To hear the bandmates tell it, Swift is always ready for it—the it being showing up for her besties.
"She has always put her friends before herself in every situation," Alana told People in 2023. "She's the kind of friend that checks up on us for weeks after a tough breakup and is a shoulder to lean on."
And speaking of that long list of exes, the siblings did play a role in Swift feeling enchanted by Scottish DJ Calvin Harris. Though Este wouldn't take credit for the 2015 set up, she did tell Ryan Seacrest, "I love them both."
But now they're very much cheering on her romance with the guy on the Chiefs.
As Swift rooted on now-fiancé Travis Kelce, they were by her side in the bleachers private box for a December 2023 game in Massachusetts, a September 2024 outing in Kansas City and the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans.
And no doubt they've scored an invite for Swift's forthcoming wedding to the NFL star tight end.
In fact Este, who wed tech entrepreneur Jonathan Levin on New Year's Eve, was pictured in Swift's now-infamous July 7, 2023 'gram featuring Gomez and other "local neighborhood independent girlies."
Admittedly, "How deranged is that post?" Swift acknowledged on SiriusXM Hits 1 in October, noting how she, Gomez—now wed to Benny Blanco—and Este fell in love soon after. "I think back on that, I'm like... there's no way. I'm in this picture with a bunch of girls. A lot—not just me and Selena—a few of the other girls found their person right after that."
As for who else might be on hand as the musician takes her magnetic force of a man to be her lover, we're filling in some blank spaces about Swift's famed squad.
They're cheer captains and they're on the bleachers.
Now that Taylor Swift is engaged to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, she has welcomed another WAG into her crew.
Since beginning her romance with Kelce, Swift has become friends with Brittany Mahomes, the wife of the team's quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.
Not only have the duo been spotted cheering on the team at several games, but but the Kansas City Current co-owner joined Swift and several of her celeb friends, including Blake Lively and Sophie Turner, for a group dinner on Sept. 30, 2023 in New York City.
Attending Game 4 of the New York Knicks NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs on June 10, 2026, Swift huddled up with longtime pals Alana Haim and Este Haim. (The missing one-third of rock band HAIM, Danielle Haim wasn't on hand, though they did get Mariska Hargitay to suit up in their pun-filled tees.)
Collaborating with Swift onstage and on the 2020 evermore track "no body, no crime," the sisters have long claimed a spot at the top of the depth chart. "She has always put her friends before herself in every situation," Alana raved to People in 2023. "She's the kind of friend that checks up on us for weeks after a tough breakup and is a shoulder to lean on."
Since Sophie Turner's split with Joe Jonas in September 2023, the Game of Thrones star has frequently been spotted with Swift, who dated The Jonas Brothers singer for several months in 2008.
The friends were first photographed together when they stepped out for dinner in NYC on Sept. 19, while Turner and Swift—who famously penned the song "Mr. Perfectly Fine" about her teenage breakup with Jonas—enjoyed another girls' night out several days later.
Turner was in attendance at the second NFL game Swift attended in support of Kelce, which came after she joined the "The 1" singer, Mahomes and Lively for a meal.
And, amid her divorce, Turner posted a photo of what appeared to be her wrist wearing a friendship bracelet spelling "Fearless," the name of Swift's 2008 album.
Yep, James, Inez, Betty and Olin's parents are still on Swift's team, the trio becoming close after the singer befriended the Gossip Girl alum in 2015.
In fact, their children call her Aunt Taylor and have played integral roles in some of her hit songs.
Often by Swift's side on her NYC adventures, Lively became a collaborator when she directed the music video for Swift's song "I Bet You Think About Me" in 2021.
"I finally got to work with the brilliant, brave, & wickedly funny @blakelively on her directorial debut," Swift raved on Instagram at the time. "Join us as we raise a toast, and a little hell."
Following her breakup with Joe Alwyn in April 2023, Swift was spotted with the couple in a getaway car—literally—when they were photographed catching a ride together after dinner at Casa Cipriani.
Of course, Lively and Reynolds were seated right next to Swift during the squad's appearance at Metlife Stadium in October 2023. And after the headline-making outing, Reynolds discreetly weighed in.
"It's a lot of fun," he told Extra during the Oct. 9 Bring Change to Mind Gala. "The NFL right now is reaching a kind of fever pitch that is usually only reserved for the Super Bowl, but here we are at the fourth or fifth game of the year and it's already happening."
While there was some rumored bad blood amid Lively's legal fight with Justin Baldoni, it wasn't enough to ruin the friendship.
One of the most surprising additions to Swift's squad was Hugh Jackman, with the Greatest Showman star attending the October 2023 game between the Chiefs and the New York Jets, piling into a VIP suite that included his good friend Ryan Reynolds and his wife, two longtime members of Swift's inner circle.
Jackman's outing with Swift & Co. came just after the recent news that the Wolverine star and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness had separated after 27 years of marriage.
Look at them now! Close friends since 2008, Swift and Selena Gomez are still as tight as ever.
Shortly after they were spotted dancing together in the audience at the 2023 MTV VMAs, Gomez shared several selfies with her BFF in a Sept. 16 Instagram post.
"Thas my best frien -she a real bad," Gomez captioned the snaps, quoting Saweetie's 2021 song "Best Friend."
In the pics, taken by Swift, the two pop stars appear to be having dinner outdoors at an oceanfront restaurant. In one photo, the "Blank Space" singer is kissing Gomez on the cheek.
Over the summer, the pair celebrated the Fourth of July together with several other friends at the "Style" singer's Independence Day party. And in August, the Only Murders in the Building star attended one of the Eras tour shows with her sister Gracie Teefey.
Later that month, when Gomez released her new song "Single Soon," Swift expressed her support by sharing the music video on her Instagram Stories, writing, "When ur bestie is the bestest."
Swift has been friends with Antoni Porowski for quite some time, even recruiting the Queer Eye star and his cast members Karamo, Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France and Bobby Berk to make an appearance in her star-studded "You Need to Calm Down" music video in 2019. Later that year, Swift and Porowski attended a Madonna concert together, and he was one of the many celebs to sit in the stacked VIP suite at the Chiefs-Jets game.
Swift enjoyed a star-studded outing on Sept. 19, 2023, in NYC, stepping out for dinner with Big Little Lies stars Laura Dern and Zoë Kravitz, along with Barbie director Greta Gerwig.
The night out served as a reunion of sorts for all four parties—in addition to working alongside Kravitz in the HBO drama, Laura starred in Gerwig's 2019 adaptation of Little Women as well as Swift's music video for "Bejeweled" last year.
And Kravitz is one of the Grammy winner's longtime pals and served as a collaborator when she helped co-write "Lavender Haze" and "Karma" on Swift's 2022 Midnights album. The week prior to their outing with Dern and Gerwig, Swift and Kravitz stepped out for another dinner in the Big Apple, this time with Kravitz's then-boyfriend Channing Tatum, as well as Lively, Reynolds and Gigi Hadid, a longtime member of Swift's squad.
Fourteen years after she covered "Picture to Burn" in her first ever YouTube video, Sabrina Carpenter was picked to perform as the opening act for Swift's Eras Tour shows in Mexico, calling it "a dream come true" for her.
"Watching her is a masterclass in itself," Carpenter gushed to Rolling Stone. "Obviously, she’s very good with words. So I feel a lot more comfortable that I’m going into a situation with someone that I admire so much and I’m just gonna, like, study."
Not only was Carpenter part of the celeb crew that attended the 2023 Jets game, she served as an opener for several Eras Tour dates.