Taylor Swift showed up to the June 9 L.A. premiere of Toy Story 5 with a 30-year-old VHS copy of the original Toy Story, which she later had signed by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.
Swift was seen holding onto the 1995 VHS as she greeted Hanks, who voices Woody, and Allen, who voices Buzz Lightyear. Photos from the premiere captured her showing them the old-school collectible and asking them to autograph it.
Hanks later reflected on the interaction in a red carpet interview with USA Today, sharing that he didn’t take a selfie with Swift but did sign the VHS she brought along. “I told her she should have brought in the VHS machine so that we could have signed it, as that could go into the Smithsonian Institute as well,” he quipped.
The red carpet moment also ties into Swift’s involvement in Toy Story 5, for which she recorded an original track. The track in question, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” written with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, is her first release since her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl.
The song, released on June 5, became Apple Music’s “biggest country single of 2026” and broke the “all-time record for the biggest soundtrack single, based on first-day plays,” according to the streaming platform.
In a June 1 Instagram post unveiling the song’s cover art, Swift shared that the lyrics were inspired by an early screening of Toy Story 5. She wrote in the caption, “I’ve always dreamed of getting to write for these characters who I’ve adored since I was a 5-year-old kid.”
She further added, “I fell instantly in love with Toy Story 5 when I was lucky enough to see it in its early stages, and I wrote this song as soon as I got home from the screening. Sometimes you just know, right?”
As the song dropped, the singer took to Instagram to share a throwback clip of herself dressed as a cowgirl and expressed her long-standing love for the franchise.
The caption of the post read, in part, “Creating something for [Toy Story character] Jessie was a new challenge and also felt like second nature all at once. And being a @toystory kid from the age of 5 til now… is an adventure I plan to be on, to infinity and beyond.”
Swift followed up the song’s release by dropping its music video within hours.
