{"id":2100520,"date":"2025-10-18T19:38:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T19:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2100520"},"modified":"2025-10-18T19:38:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T19:38:25","slug":"taylor-swift-donates-100000-to-young-fan-battling-cancer-who-calls-star-my-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/taylor-swift-donates-100000-to-young-fan-battling-cancer-who-calls-star-my-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift Donates $100,000 to Young Fan Battling Cancer Who Calls Star \u2018My Friend\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Earlier this month, a woman named Katelynn Smoot shared a heartwarming video of her young daughter, who is battling cancer, watching the music video for Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/music\/articles\/taylor-swift-showcases-showgirls-across-230219572.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Fate of Ophelia;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\">The Fate of Ophelia<\/a>.\u201d In the clip, little Lilah points at the screen and says, \u201cThat\u2019s my friend!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The video quickly went viral, with fans flooding Smoot\u2019s @standwithlilah social media page with messages of love and support for Lilah, who is fighting an aggressive form of brain cancer. Just a few weeks later, on Friday, Lilah received a touching surprise from her \u201cfriend\u201d Swift \u2014 a $100,000 <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/stand-by-lilah-in-her-cancer-fight\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:donation to her GoFundMe;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">donation to her GoFundMe <\/a>for medical care, and a sweet message: \u201cSending the biggest hug to my friend, Lilah! Love, Taylor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The quiet donation from Swift, spotted by Swifties, has inspired other fans of the pop star to follow suit by contributing to the fundraiser, each in increments of $13, in honor of Swift\u2019s favorite number. As of publication, the fundraiser has raised over $167,000 in donations from more than 2,000 people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After the six-figure donation, Smoot shared a video of herself and Lilah dancing to \u201cThe Life of Ophelia,\u201d reacting to the news and sharing their gratitude for Swift\u2019s generosity. \u201cThank you beyond words, Taylor Swift. We can now just focus on being here with our girl. Truly, we are so grateful\u2026 You have no idea what this means to our family,\u201d she captioned the post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On the page, Smoot has shared her and her daughter\u2019s love for Swift \u2014 and how she birthed a \u201clittle Swiftie\u201d after attending the Eras Tour while pregnant with her. \u201cLilah\u2019s name was originally going to be Willow,\u201d Smoot explained in one video, referencing the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-album-reviews\/taylor-swift-leaves-her-comfort-zones-behind-on-the-head-spinning-heart-breaking-folklore-1033533\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Folklore;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Folklore<\/a> favorite. \u201cWe were set on that name my whole pregnancy, but ultimately ended on Lilah.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On the GoFundMe, which has been running since Lilah started chemotherapy in March, Smoot explained baby Lilah was diagnosed with a \u201cvery rare aggressive form of brain cancer\u201d earlier this year after suffering a seizure. An MRI found a stage 4 tumor, which was removed in March, and she has since been undergoing chemo. In an August update, the Smoots updated donors about the treatment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cAfter [an MRI and LP], she will start 6 weeks of proton radiation, where our family will have to travel to [Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia] for her to receive,\u201d they wrote. \u201cWe will be a few hundred miles away from home. All the donations we receive will help us with travel expenses and paying bills as we are still out of work while Lilah is in treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sign up for <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cloud.email.rollingstone.com\/signup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:RollingStone's Newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">RollingStone&#8217;s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/31XsHSx\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2TkcoeG\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Twitter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Twitter<\/a>, and <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2TntOHq\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, a woman named Katelynn Smoot shared a heartwarming video of her young daughter, who is battling cancer, watching the music video for Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia.\u201d In the clip, little Lilah points at the screen and says, \u201cThat\u2019s my friend!\u201d The video quickly went viral, with fans flooding Smoot\u2019s @standwithlilah [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2100521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[396548,22851,23084],"class_list":["post-2100520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-katelynn-smoot","tag-music-video","tag-taylor-swift"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Taylor-Swift-Donates-100000-to-Young-Fan-Battling-Cancer-Who.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2100520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100522,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100520\/revisions\/2100522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2100521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}