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After Taylor Swift was booed by Eagles fans at the Super Bowl, many Swifties expected her boyfriend – Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – to come to her defense. But instead, it was Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, whose team bested the Chiefs at the Super Bowl LIX Sunday, to speak out in her defense first.
“You know, I remember that they showed her on the jumbotron and she got booed. I don’t get it. I don’t get why she was getting hate there,” Barkley said during a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show.
The running back pointed to the notable impact Swift has made on the professional sport just by attending Kelce’s games.
“She’s there supporting her significant other and she’s made the game bigger,” he said. “In football, we’re all about, you know, how can we expand the game and make it more, you know, internationally and we’re traveling to Brazil and we’re traveling to Mexico, and you know, apparently we’re traveling to Australia soon.”
Barkley then added, “So we’re trying to expand the game and, you know, her being a part of it’s only helping that. I don’t get the slack that she’s getting.”
And the Swiftie effect is certainly real: A survey conducted after the 2024 Super Bowl found that 20% of viewers who tuned in were rooting for the Chiefs because of Kelce and Swift’s relationship, while another survey found that 20% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers were more likely to watch if Swift attended the game, per Variety.
Barkley’s statements carry more weight considering even President Trump, who became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl, ridiculed the pop star on social media, claiming he received a much warmer reception than she did when he entered the New Orleans Superdome.
In a post on TruthSocial after the game, the president wrote, “The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift. She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!”
Kelce has been facing backlash from fans online amid his continued silence as many note he was quick to welcome the president to the big game, saying it was “pretty cool” Trump would be watching from the crowd.
“That’s awesome. It’s a great honor, I think, no matter who the president is,” he said at a press conference ahead of the Super Bowl LIX. “I’m excited because it’s the biggest game of my life, you know, and having the president there – it’s the best country in the world, so it’d be pretty cool.”
Well, look at how that turned out.
Swift was met with a much warmer reception during the 2024 Super Bowl when she chugged an entire beer during a commercial break.
