ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — During the middle of her shift last week, Samantha Jacobson got the news that she wouldn’t have her job as a cocktail server at Disney Springs for a while.
“It was a shock, because this is my only source of income and I love my job,” Jacobson said. “It was pretty hard and stressful.”
With no savings and no job prospects, the 24-year-old went to social media and posted about her woes.
She never expected a response from superstar Taylor Swift.
“My initial reaction was that it was fake,” Jacobson said. “I thought it was a scammer, someone pretending to be her. I probably clicked her icon 10 or 15 times to see if it really went back to her actual Twitter.”
But it was real, and Swift immediately sent $3,000 to Jacobson’s PayPal account.
“It’s crazy. I’m still speechless,” Jacobson said. “So many people have reached out and messaged me and called me, and I just can’t wrap my head around that, out of her millions and millions of fans, she picked me.”
Jacobson said she is grateful for the help.
“I think it really shows that there are still so many good people in the world with such pure hearts that really, genuinely just want to help people,” she said.
Jacobson said she plans to pay off her bills and pay it forward, which is exactly what she believes Swift would want her to do.