Taylor Swift's three cats: Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button

Meredith Grey, a medium-haired Scottish Fold, arrived at Taylor Swift's home in the fall of 2011, after the artist wrapped the Speak Now World Tour. Three years later, a 2014 Diet Coke commercial shoot led to a second cat, also a Scottish Fold: Olivia Benson, named for the detective played by Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The third, Benjamin Button, joined the household in April 2019. He had been a feline actor on the "ME!" music video, and when the shoot ended Taylor asked to keep him. He is a long-haired Ragdoll, traditional seal point.

All three cats appear in real, documented productions, not parallel fan accounts. The documentary Miss Americana (Netflix, 2020) shows Meredith and Olivia together in the kitchen of the Nashville house, the Apple TV+ session Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) shows them during recording, and Benjamin Button appears draped around Taylor's neck on the cover of Entertainment Weekly in April 2019.

Meredith Grey, the first

Adopted as a kitten. Medium-haired Scottish Fold, gray tabby with white markings. The name comes from Ellen Pompeo's character on Grey's Anatomy, a show Taylor has named as a favorite in several interviews.

Meredith has been the most reserved of the three. She turns up only occasionally on social media. Taylor described her in Vogue (2019 cover interview) as "the one who watches you from the corner and judges everything you do." In practice, that is a classic medium-haired Scottish Fold profile: sociable with the family, distant with strangers, and intensely bonded to one person.

Olivia Benson, the famous one

Adopted in 2014. Short-haired Scottish Fold, cream and white. Named for the detective sergeant played by Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order: SVU.

Olivia Benson is the most photographed of the three. She appeared in the 2014 Diet Coke commercial (her television debut), in the "Blank Space" music video (2014), in People and Time photo shoots, and regularly on Taylor's personal Instagram. In 2022 the British outlet All About Cats placed her on its "richest cats in the world" list, with an estimated value of roughly $97 million from accumulated commercial and advertising appearances. That figure is best read as a market estimate rather than a formal net worth.

Benjamin Button, the Ragdoll

Adopted in April 2019. Long-haired Ragdoll, traditional seal point, very dark blue eyes. He is known for voluntarily climbing onto Taylor's shoulder and hanging there like a satchel. He first appeared that way in Entertainment Weekly in April 2019, in a photo that went viral.

The Ragdoll sits at the opposite end of the temperament scale from the Scottish Fold: a large cat (males up to 20-22 lb, about 9-10 kg), tolerant of strangers, physically affectionate, and unbothered by handling. Adding Benjamin to a house with two resident Scottish Folds worked reasonably well, both because the Ragdoll usually accepts other cats easily and because Meredith and Olivia already coexisted without aggression.

The Scottish Fold controversy

Two Scottish Folds in the household of one of the most visible artists in the world has drawn attention from animal welfare groups for a specific reason. The cartilage mutation that defines the breed (osteochondrodysplasia) does not affect only the forward-folded ears. It is a dominant mutation in the TRPV4 gene that produces early-onset osteoarthritis documented across the joints, especially in the tail, hocks, and wrists, with chronic pain from a young age.

Veterinary bodies and several feline registries have advised against breeding Scottish Folds to one another, because cats homozygous for the mutation develop severe, crippling disease. Some jurisdictions have moved to restrict breeding the breed entirely. In the US the breed is not banned, and the CFA still recognizes it, but the American Veterinary Medical Association and welfare advocates urge prospective owners to understand the inherited skeletal risk before acquiring one.

Taylor Swift has not commented publicly on the controversy. Her two Scottish Folds were adopted rather than purchased from a breeder, and they receive regular veterinary care. The breeding debate sits outside the artist's specific control and belongs to the wider conversation about breeds built on a problematic genetic foundation.

What the story illustrates

Three concrete points worth flagging:

1. Breed choice is not trivial. The Scottish Fold has a striking look (folded ears, an "owl" expression) that has driven its popularity, amplified by public figures like Taylor Swift. Popularity does nothing to solve the underlying joint-health problem baked into the breed's genetics.
2. Introducing a new cat to resident cats tends to go better when temperaments differ. Benjamin Button (a tolerant Ragdoll) entering a house with Meredith and Olivia (more territorial Scottish Folds) and settling in smoothly probably owes a lot to that contrast.
3. The celebrity cat is more than a cat. Olivia Benson has earnings attributed to advertising appearances estimated above $90 million. Karl Lagerfeld's Choupette operated on the same brand logic. The cat as a media asset is a 21st-century phenomenon.

The verifiable facts in one line

Cat	Breed	Year acquired	Verifiable public appearance
Meredith Grey	Medium-haired Scottish Fold	2011	Vogue 2019, Miss Americana 2020
Olivia Benson	Short-haired Scottish Fold	2014	Diet Coke 2014, Blank Space MV 2014
Benjamin Button	Long-haired seal point Ragdoll	2019	ME! MV 2019, EW cover 2019

The Ragdoll, like Benjamin Button, is known for a calm, handleable temperament. The Scottish Fold's appeal is real, and so is the skeletal disease that comes with the gene behind those folded ears. For anyone drawn to either breed by a famous owner, the responsible move is to learn the health profile first and to favor adoption or a breeder who screens against the worst outcomes.