Taylor Swift has three cats: Meredith, Olivia, and Benjamin. Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson are Scottish Folds named after television heroines; Benjamin Button is a Ragdoll she adopted off the set of one of her own music videos. Between them they have booked national commercials, a corporate logo, a Deadpool cameo, and an awards-show win, which makes the Taylor Swift cats less pets than a small entertainment division.
Each cat has a distinct public record, and one of them has barely been seen in years. Here is the full roster, what each cat has actually done, and the honest answer to the breed question that follows the two Folds around. Also in this series: Elon Musk’s pets.
The Taylor Swift Cats at a Glance
| Cat | Breed | Joined | Named after | Best known for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meredith Grey | Scottish Fold | 2011 | Ellen Pompeo’s character on Grey’s Anatomy | Refusing to be photographed |
| Olivia Benson | Scottish Fold | 2014 | Mariska Hargitay’s detective on Law & Order: SVU | Commercials, music videos, the Taylor Swift Productions logo |
| Benjamin Button | Ragdoll | 2019 | The Brad Pitt film character | Being adopted mid-shoot from the “ME!” video |
Swift told Rolling Stone the naming pattern for the first two was deliberate: strong, complex, independent women. Benjamin broke the theme because the video shoot broke her resolve.
Meredith Grey, the Recluse
Meredith is the eldest, with Swift since 2011, and she has spent the past several years as the household’s unphotographed legend. She appeared so rarely on Swift’s Instagram that fans floated theories about her fate, and in 2021 Swift posted a video, with Benjamin on her lap, to address what she called the “recent allegations” that Meredith was a missing cat. Her explanation: “The truth is, Meredith just hates having her picture taken.”
The sightings since have been rare enough to feel like events. In 2025 Jack Antonoff posted a clip of Swift celebrating the buyback of her master recordings while holding a visibly reluctant Meredith, and later that year Swift told the New Heights podcast that Jason Kelce had warned his daughters the cat was poisonous. Swift’s version of the encounter: the cats were fine with the kids, and Meredith bit no one.
Olivia Benson, the Professional
Olivia is the working cat of the family. Since arriving in 2014 she has appeared in the music videos for “Blank Space”, “ME!”, and “Karma”, in the documentary Miss Americana, and in ad campaigns for Keds, Diet Coke, AT&T, and DirecTV, the last of which rendered her as a half-unicorn the ad called a caticorn. Her silhouette is the logo of Taylor Swift Productions, Swift’s in-house studio, and in 2023 she won the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award for Favorite Celebrity Pet.
Her cultural footprint runs wider than her own bookings. Ryan Reynolds wore a T-shirt of Olivia and Meredith (“Olivia & Meredith Best Friends Purrrrr-Ever”) in Deadpool 2. A poster for the spy film Argylle was modeled on a shot of Olivia in her carrier from Miss Americana. John Cleese, sitting across from Swift on The Graham Norton Show, called her “the weirdest cat I’ve ever seen in my life”, and the clip still circulates every time the show reruns.
The namesake circle eventually closed. Mariska Hargitay, who plays the actual Olivia Benson, met the cat in 2015; in 2023 she adopted a cat of her own and named it Karma, after Swift’s song. Swift’s reply under the announcement: “Nothing has ever come more full circle.”
Benjamin Button, the Video-Set Adoption
Benjamin is the youngest and the only non-Fold. He was a rescue kitten cast as a prop for the “ME!” video shoot in 2019; Swift adopted him before the set wrapped. He is a Ragdoll, the breed famous for going limp when picked up, which explains most of the footage of him draped over Swift’s shoulder like a stole.
He also carries the family’s best birthday joke: Swift once marked his birthday by noting he had turned 22 in cat years, with the hashtag #ImFeeling22.
The Scottish Fold Question
The folded ears that define Meredith and Olivia’s breed come from a cartilage mutation, and it does not stop at the ears. Every Scottish Fold has some degree of osteochondrodysplasia, a joint disease, per the welfare charity International Cat Care; the condition is the reason breed bans keep coming up in veterinary circles. After Swift’s cats and Ed Sheeran’s Fold, Calippo, drove interest in the breed on Instagram, the British Veterinary Association publicly called for it not to be bred at all.
None of that is a judgment on cats already in homes; Meredith has been thriving for over a decade. It is a caution for anyone about to go shopping for folded ears of their own: the ears cost the cat something, and welfare charities want would-be buyers to know it before breeders profit from the look.
Where the Cats Are Now
Because Swift shares them less than she once did, the cats’ whereabouts have become a recurring fan question, asked in threads with genuine urgency:
“That’s it, that’s the question. Where are her cats, are they alive still, who takes care of them? Is Travis even a cat person? He seems like he’d be “allergic”?”
– r/travisandtaylor, October 2025 (251 upvotes)
The visible record answers most of it. Olivia traveled with Swift as recently as the Eras Tour’s Miami dates. Meredith surfaced alive and grumpy in Antonoff’s 2025 video and in the New Heights story about the Kelce kids. Benjamin remains the most photographed of the three. Swift has also said she brings the cats along when destination quarantine rules allow it, which is why they surface in different cities.
The Cats in Her Music and Movies
Swift’s cat obsession is text, not subtext. “Karma is a cat” is a full lyric in “Karma”, sung over footage of Olivia in the video. She took the role of Bombalurina in the film adaptation of Cats and told Time the pets were part of the reason: “I have cats. I’m obsessed with them. I love my cats so much that when a role came up in a movie called Cats, I just thought, like, I gotta do this.”
The cats have also done more conventional promo: Olivia and Meredith appeared alongside her in the “ME!” video’s opening scene, and the pattern of casting her own pets means every new video gets frame-by-frame checked by fans for a tail in the background.
FAQ: Taylor Swift’s Cats
How many cats does Taylor Swift have?
Taylor Swift has three cats: Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button. Meredith joined her in 2011, Olivia in 2014, and Benjamin in 2019, and all three remain with her per her own recent interviews and posts.
What types of cats does Taylor Swift have?
Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson are Scottish Folds, the breed with folded ears caused by a cartilage mutation. Benjamin Button is a Ragdoll, a large, limp-when-held breed. The two Folds are pedigree cats; Benjamin was a rescue kitten from a video shoot.
What is Taylor Swift’s most expensive cat?
Olivia Benson is the highest-earning of the three, with commercial work for Keds, Diet Coke, AT&T, and DirecTV plus the Taylor Swift Productions logo. The famous nine-figure “net worth” attached to her online traces to a pet-brand marketing estimate, not any audited number.
Which Taylor Swift song is about cats?
“Karma” contains her most direct cat lyric, “karma is a cat”, and Olivia appears in its video. Beyond that one line, no Swift song is about the cats; they live in her visuals, from “Blank Space” to “ME!”, instead of her lyrics.
