Taylor Swift's Dad Is Under Investigation For Allegedly Attacking A Paparazzi
TMZ - Taylor Swift's father, Scott, has been accused of attacking a paparazzo in Australia -- and now cops are looking into it ... and some of this appears to have been caught on camera.
New South Wales Police Media Unit tells TMZ ... cops there are investigating an alleged assault that was reported to them on Sydney's North Shore very early Tuesday morning local time -- this after a photographer named Ben McDonald filed a complaint claiming just that.
We're told police there were informed that a 71-year-old man -- believed to be Scott -- allegedly got into a physical confrontation with a 51-year-old man (McDonald) at Neutral Bay Wharf at about 2 AM Tuesday as he was exiting the area.
This must be on page 1 of the paparazzi playbook. I bet they teach it on the first day at Paparazzi University. Sure, they make their living by snapping incessant, candid celebrity pictures. Every now and then they catch a big fish and cash in on a decent sized pay day. But I have to imagine the real money is in getting attacked. You catch a multi-millionaire movie star on a bad day. Maybe he's even had a few drinks. You run up in his face, snap a whole mess of photos, annoy the hell out of them. Technically you're not doing anything illegal. But if you can toe that line of being a gigantic annoying piece of shit, without breaking any sort of laws, and that movie star takes a swing at you. Press charges, then settle out of court. That's how you make the big bucks.
I don't know this for a fact, I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a struggling paparazzi. I would think that's best case scenario for them.
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It really feels like that's what Australian paparazzo, Ben McDonald is going for here.
From the looks of it, Scott doesn't appear to be directly involved -- but again, it's hard to tell for sure. In any case, McDonald has gone running to cops to accuse him of assault.
McDonald told the Daily Mail that Taylor was with Scott here -- and that they were arriving from Homebush on a yacht when all this went down. Photos of their arrival were captured by paps on the ground -- including McDonald -- and you can actually see Taylor walking through with an umbrella over her entire torso as Scott guides her through the pap crush.
Gotta be honest here Ben, I feel like you're grasping at straws a bit. Yes, there was some sort of an altercation. It's hard to tell exactly what went down based on your shitty video, but I will concede that something happened. But what's the worst charge Taylor's dad is going to be hit with? A very minor assault charge? Maybe he'll have to pay a fine? Are you really going to get paid off that? Considering you didn't require a lick of medical treatment.
To be fair, I don't know how things work in Australia. Maybe this is enough of an altercation that Taylor's dad would have to make a court appearance. Maybe a few hours worth of community service? I'm completely speculating here, but maybe the prospect of having to deal with the Australian legal in even the slightest way would be enough of a hassle that the Swift family will cut Ben a check so they can move on with their lives and never think about the incident again.
Or maybe Ben isn't angling for a check at all. Perhaps he just really loves the law. Perhaps he's the Joe West of paparazzi's, and is sticking up for discriminated paparazzi across the world. He's sick and tired of being maligned by celebrities and the general public who think of them as scum of the earth, when in reality, stalking celebrities and shoving a camera in their face is an essential part of the entertainment industry. Somebody has to do it.
However, if this Taylor Swift rep is to be believed, it sure sounds like the paparazzi were the dicks in this whole situation.
A rep for Taylor tells TMZ … "Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water."
But I guess that's just the game. You can't be a successful paparazzo if you're not willing throw a woman into the water from time to time. If you want to get that perfect picture of Taylor Swift fully covered by an umbrella. A picture where you can see nothing more than her ankles, you gotta break some eggs from time to time.
UPDATE: Since I finished this blog a new angle came out. When I first saw the update I thought we actually might get a real look at what happened. Not a whole lot here though.
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It looks like Taylor's dad made some sort of lunge behind the vehicle around the 13 second mark, but still nothing clear. I might have guess that this is how almost every interaction between Taylor Swift and the paparazzi go. I feel like at least 1 person gets shoved every time she walks to her car. I'm officially of the opinion that this Ben McDonald guy is a loser. You can see him at the end there shoving his camera into the vehicle. He reminds me of Darren Rovell the way he's shortly stumbling around with his camera. You'd hate to see a guy like that get paid.