Taylor Swift Brought Her Childhood "Toy Story" VHS to the Premiere and Asked Tom Hanks For An Autograph

Jun 12, 2026 by apost team

Taylor Swift contributed an original song to the "Toy Story 5" soundtrack. She performed it live at the world premiere. She wore a show-stopping Erdem gown and later changed into a yellow dress to sit at a grand piano. She did all of this as one of the most famous people on the planet. And then, on the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on June 9, 2026, she pulled out a VHS tape and asked Tom Hanks for his autograph like a five-year-old who just found out Woody is real.

The VHS tape was her original childhood copy of "Toy Story" — the 1995 Pixar film that would have been in theaters when Swift, born Dec. 13, 1989, was approximately five years old. She had kept it for more than 30 years. She brought it to the premiere. She asked Hanks, born July 9, 1956, the voice of Woody, to sign it. She asked Tim Allen, born June 13, 1953, the voice of Buzz Lightyear, to sign it too. She also asked composer Randy Newman to add his signature.

Hanks described the moment to USA Today. "I did not get a selfie, but I did sign her original VHS of the first Toy Story," he said. He then added that she should have brought the VHS player too — so they could sign that as well and donate it to the Smithsonian Institute.

The premiere was held on June 9, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre. "Toy Story 5" opens in theaters on June 19, 2026. Swift's original soundtrack song, "I Knew It, I Knew You," co-written and co-produced with Jack Antonoff, was released ahead of the film.

The evening gave fans one more memory to hold alongside it.

Swift had been announced as a contributor to the "Toy Story 5" soundtrack months earlier — a collaboration that produced one of the more unexpected Easter egg moments of the year, when her official website briefly displayed a 48-hour countdown clock with Toy Story-style imagery in late April 2026 before removing it approximately ten minutes later.

At the premiere itself, Swift performed "I Knew It, I Knew You" live before a seated audience — a solo piano performance in the yellow gown — before being joined by Randy Newman for a duet of the franchise's signature song "You've Got a Friend in Me." Newman, who has been composing for the "Toy Story" films since the original in 1995, lent the moment a warmth that was hard to manufacture. The audience, by all accounts, did not want it to end.

But the image that circulated most widely from the evening was not from the stage. It was from the red carpet — Swift, wide-eyed, holding up her signed VHS tape with the expression of someone who has just achieved something they did not entirely believe would happen. She showed it off to the crowd. Her facial expressions, captured in close-up photographs, told the full story without a caption.

Swift later shared how meaningful the "Toy Story" connection was to her. "I'm just a huge fan," she has said of the franchise. "These films are part of my childhood." The signed VHS tape, it would seem, was not staged. She had been holding onto it for a very long time — waiting, perhaps without knowing it, for exactly this moment.

apost.com

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