Taylor Swift helped AJ McLean get some huge dad points!

During an interview on the most recent episode of the Getting Grilled with Curtis Stone podcast, McLean, 46, recalls taking his older daughter Elliott, 11, to see the “Love Story” singer play live nearly four years ago.

Podcast host Curtis Stone mentioned that the Backstreet Boys are going through something similar to Swift, to which McLean responded, “It’s a moment, and it’s something that you need to embrace,” adding that “as long as you’re in the headspace that she’s in, you can really embrace it, and really appreciate it.”

“She is, by far, in my opinion, one of the most grounded, humble performers ever,” McLean said about Swift.

“It’s like, ‘OK, something’s gotta be wrong with you. There’s got to be a darker side. And there isn’t. She’s simply… she’s seen my oldest three times,” he explained. “And the last time she met her, she remembered her name, which that, as a dad alone, catapulted her into the stratosphere for me.”

“You see, we were backstage. She came back. She says, ‘Ava.’ And I was simply like, “What?” “Mind blown.” McLean moved on, before discussing the name change.

“My daughter has changed her name to Elliott, and she has had it for about four years. Nothing to do with sexual preference or anything,” the musician explained on the podcast, describing how the youngster knew several Avas.

“She felt her name wasn’t distinctive, and she was watching Pete’s Dragon one day. And Elliott is the… Is Elliott the dragon? Yeah. Elliott,” McLean recalls. “She wanted that name with two T’s. God forbid, I spell it with a single T. And she has been Elliott ever since.”

McLean, who also has a 7-year-old daughter named Lyric with his former wife Rochelle, adds, “I did tell her… I said, ‘Babe, you do realise if you want to keep it, that’s fine; I support it, but we legally have to go to the courthouse and alter it.’ “

“And when I said that, she’s like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll keep it for a couple more years, and then I’ll go back to Ava,'” he said, recalling how he said “No” when Lyric wanted to change her name to Ava. 

“And it is her body, it’s her name, it’s her everything. And she is still Ava. “She will always be Ava to me,” he said at the time.

“But at the same time, whatever reasoning it is, that’s hers, and I’m going to support it a million percent, my wife will [too],” he continued.