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Wait, what?Sure, Ill back up.
The song is called the last great american dynasty and tells the story of Rebekah Harkness.
So Rebekah is from Missouri?Yes.
Her saltbox house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis.
(Craig Unger wrotea 14-page profilethat later became a book,Blue Blood, about Harkness forNew Yorkin 1983.
The details from theTimesare via a review of the book.)
Talk to me about the bitch pack Swift is singing about.
Is that real?Actually, yes.
Harkness and some of her friends were known in popular media back then as the bitch squad.Sound familiar?
Flew in all her Bitch Pack friends from the city.
Filled the pool with Champagne and swam with the big names.
Again, sound familiar?
Unger describes Harkness as an embarrassing key in of guy.
Embarrassing, but very,veryrich.
The wedding was charming, if a little gauche.
Theres only so far new money goes.
Together, the couple bought a compound on the shores of Rhode Island.
Will Harkness died seven years after their wedding.
His widow then took upon renovating the house.
When a choreographer started getting good press, she fired him.
TheTimesreferences an anecdote about her dyeing a cat green though.
Theres also a detail about a fish tank full of both goldfish and Scotch.
And a time she decided to stalk J.D.
Salinger at his home while she was dressed as a maid.
Did she ever remarry?Yes and yes.
Harkness had two more husbands.
Both marriages ended in divorce.
So about those kids she didnt really want to see.Her daughter Edith died by suicide.
Prior to her death, Edith jumped off a roof but survived.
Same for an attempted overdose.
(How should she do it?Rebekah Harkness was quoted asking in theTimes.
Is there a chic way to go?)
(The child died at age 10.)
In fact,thehappiest period in his life.
Or lives, I guess.
Is she still alive?Harkness died of cancer at 67 in 1982.
And Swift … lives in her house now?Swift bought Harknesss Rhode Island Holiday House in 2013.
She reportedly paid in cash.
Like Harkness, her arrival caused a stir.
Neighbors were concerned about fans and paparazzi.
Did she buy the house just to write this song seven years later?Honestly, its Taylor Swift.
Nobody plays a longer game than she does.
No one knew how it happened.
