Jessica Chastain Reveals How Taylor Swift Friendship Started

Taylor Swift seems to have an unlikely friendship with most of Hollywood. Jessica Chastain is the latest A-lister publicly joining the singer’s inner circle — but they’ve actually been friends for years.

“She’s actually really sweet … the best, it’s crazy,” Chastain, 46, said about Swift, 34, during a Friday, December 15, appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I met her in 2011 at the Met Ball, and we were both — it was, like, the first year I was invited to the Met Ball. First year I had movies out and we were both sitting next to each other.”

Chastain, who had “just gone through a breakup,” remembered talking to Swift about the split.

“We went and danced together. It was such a fun night,” the actress shared. “Then, the next day, I had an e-mail from iTunes that said, ‘Taylor Swift,’ whatever. I just thought it was a Taylor Swift album. She had made me a breakup playlist that she sent me.”

Chastain remembered it to be “the sweetest thing.”

“Here I thought it was, like, a Taylor Swift advertisement,” she continued. “And it was like, wait a minute. And she curated all these breakup songs to send me to help me get through my breakup.”

All these years later, and Chastain has still stayed in touch with Swift. Of course, the Memory star saw the Eras Tour as well.

“I was in Mexico City and she was touring there [in August]. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go to Taylor’s concert,’” Chastain said, revealing that she took her assistant to the show, who is “obsessed” with Swift.

This time around, Chastain didn’t need a breakup playlist. The actress has been married to husband Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo since 2017.

Swift’s love life, meanwhile, has experienced some ups and downs this year. However, she’s currently on a major high.

In April, Us Weekly confirmed that Swift and Joe Alwyn split after six years together. The singer briefly moved on with The 1975 singer Matty Healy the following month. Us confirmed in June that the casual fling had fizzled out.

Come September, sparks started to fly between Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce. While their first public outing took place at a Kansas City Chiefs game that month, Swift has since revealed that she and Kelce had been keeping things low key for a bit.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift told TIME earlier this month, referring to the July “New Heights” podcast episode when Kelce hinted at wanting to give the singer his number. Swift confirmed the two “started hanging out right after that.”