Stephen A. Smith isn't right here for the Taylor Swift slander.
“I have to take a moment to come to the defense of Taylor Swift,” Smith, 56, stated all through a Wednesday, January 10, Mad Canine’s A-Checklist section on ESPN. “Everybody’s sitting up there and acting like she’s some kind of impediment.”
Smith without delay addressed the grievance about Swift, 34, attending Kansas Town Chiefs video games in beef up of her boyfriend, Travis Kelce.
“Excuse me, she did her job! That Eras Tour? Off the chain. Generated billions,” he added. “She’s going to support her dude. To show up at a football game and the cameras are on her — that ain’t her fault! And excuse me, by the way, she went to the games after the concerts. It’s not like she used the games to bump up the concerts.”
NFL enthusiasts haven’t been ready to get Swift off their minds since she went public with Kelce, additionally 34, in September 2023. Her a lot of appearances at his soccer video games impressed the NFL to capitalize off the eye by way of the usage of her song for promotional clips and pointing the digital camera at her all through pronounces.
In step with Smith, critics are too fascinated by looking for a reason why to dislike Swift.
“Those kids were going to her concerts whether the NFL was promoting her or not! Taylor Swift is that girl. Let’s show some respect,” he concluded. “She probably is gonna have a positive on Travis Kelce’s performance, OK? I’m not trying to disrespect Taylor Swift.”
Swift has in the past gained beef up from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who leaned into the trend round Kelce’s non-public lifestyles.
“They seem to be enjoying their relationship. That’s great in and of itself, but it has connected more fans of Taylor’s and more fans of the NFL in some ways,” he instructed CBS in November 2023. “[Swift is] an unbelievable artist, obviously, Travis is an unbelievable player and I think it’s great for the league to have that kind of attention — so we welcome it.”
As for Swift, she isn’t involved concerning the destructive responses from some other folks.
“I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in. There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once,” she instructed TIME in December 2023 concerning the consideration. “I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”
Swift went directly to gush about her reference to Kelce, announcing, “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care. The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”