Security guard fired after Taylor Swift selfie at Minneapolis show
MINNEAPOLIS – A sing-along security guard was a hit at Taylor Swift's sold-out show in Minneapolis. But something he asked fans to do cost him his job.
Calvin Denker says a cellphone video led to BEST Security firing him. A full-time software engineer, Denker took the job with the company nearly two years ago to get closer to sports.
"I thought well hey, I'll still get my exposure to football, but I won't have to be on the TV the whole time, so I'll just get this gig," Denker said.
A long-time Swiftie, Denker was excited to see he'd been assigned to work the floor of her tour stops in Minneapolis — a position some paid thousands of dollars to have.
The only catch? Being security, he'd have to keep his back turned to the superstar. So he had an idea. He handed pieces of paper to concertgoers with this plea:
Hi, I'm not allowed to use my phone at any point tonight. Can you please take a photo of me with Taylor Swift behind me and text it to my phone number? Thank you so much, and enjoy the show!
Denker handed those pieces of papers to the crowd on night two, and one of the videos of him went viral — also catching the attention of his employer.
"I was under the impression that what I was doing was a by-the-books way to handle this and get some memories from the night. But HR didn't really see it that way," he said.
In a statement, BEST's parent company told WCCO, "We have clear company policies to which our staff are expected [to] adhere."
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Denker says even though he believes the company reacted harshly, he has no bad blood with them.
"Ultimately, Taylor Swift was right behind me, and I was aware of it, so I was having the time of my life," he said.
So far, Denker's videos on TikTok have received nearly three million views.