Dierks swims in Lake E Coli, Trace back to Celebrity Apprentice, and more!

by Brad Schmitt

Brad Schmitt is a longtime Nashville entertainment journalist, having shared the goods on Music City’s most interesting people in the newspaper, on TV, and online for more than 15 years. Every week, Brad hits country fans with the latest news from Nashville and the lives of their favorite country artists.

“Girls” Gone Twitter: Taylor has new online friend

Yes, Taylor Swift has 22.6 million followers on Twitter – and one of the latest is Lena Dunham, the creator and star of HBO series Girls, about several 20-somethings in New York City. (Think Sex and the City, younger and more modern.)

Lena and Taylor have even sent each other direct messages (DMs), the height of intimacy in the Twitter-verse, Lena tells V Magazine.

“She started following me, and here’s how you find out Taylor Swift is following you. You start hearing from all the insane Taylor Swift fans that are like ‘If Taylor Swift loves you I love you’,” she said.

Lena says she got some backlash from her own followers when she tweeted that she liked Taylor’s new album, Red.

“[E]very one of my Twitter followers was like, ‘I so hope that you’re joking.’ But I have no interest in liking anything ironically. If I wanted to be ironic, I’d grow a mustache.”

Fans get an upside to Trace Adkins’ house burning down

Trace Adkins is on the All-Star Celebrity Apprentice that premieres March 3 on NBC.

But wait. I thought Trace was uncomfortable being on that show the first time.

“One of the most stressful periods of my adult life,” Trace told reporters at the Television Critics Association last week.

Trace said he was “forced to tolerate individuals that I normally wouldn’t tolerate.”

So why go back? To give back.

Trace is playing for the American Red Cross, which was on the scene right after his Nashville area house burned down in 2011.

“It took my house burning down to get me to come back,” he told the reporters.

Dierks’ New Year lake plunge is far less jarring in 2013

You’ve seen it each year: Dierks Bentley and some brave bandmates all jump into 40-degree water in a Nashville lake each New Year’s Day.

Lucky Dierks: He scored a gig for this New Year’s Day playing at a college bowl game in Orlando, Fla. So the temps were in the 60s for the annual plunge, which happened in Lake Eola.

One small problem, as posted on Dierks’ Twitter account: “overheard today after we did our 2013 lake jump: ‘this lake ain’t spring fed, it’s street fed.’”

One of Dierks’ more jaded fans renamed the body of water “Lake E Coli.”

Nasty.

Can’t wait until March to see more of Trace? Watch his performance of  “Ladies Love Country Boys” on the Opry stage.

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