Bill Maher has stirred controversy after calling Taylor Swift “tacky” and saying that Travis Kelce is going to “dump her”.
Maher released the latest episode of his Club Random podcast last Sunday (July 28), which featured special guest Haliey Welch aka the ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl.
The 68-year-old comedian brought up Swift to Welch, saying that he preferred her music more “when she was country”, and that he loves her 2010 song ‘Sparks Fly’.
However, it wasn’t long until he became more critical, specifically bringing up Swift’s public romance with Kelce.
“I’m sure she’s a lovely person, but the whole thing with the football player… it just felt like 35 is a little old to be like, ‘My boyfriend’s a football player, and I wear his jersey to the game with his number on it’,” Maher said.
He then made the bold prediction that Kelce is “gonna dump” Swift.
“With her, it’s like the Gatorade at the Super Bowl,” he added, referencing the tradition of the winning team pouring Gatorade over their head coach at the end of the finals. “You know you’re gonna get dumped – you just don’t know when.”
Welch chimed in: “But you gotta think about it this way. If he does that, can you imagine the next album we’re gonna get off that? It won’t be ‘fuck John Mayer‘ anymore. It’ll be ‘fuck Travis’.”
Maher then asked if Swift was still singing about ex-boyfriend Mayer. “Her tour is the ‘Eras Tour’… it must’ve had the songs about all the people that she wrote songs about,” he continued.
“I’d feel tacky if I was singing about my ex-boyfriend,” Welch said. “You can’t control what the muse dictates to you — she’s a songwriter. I can’t fault her for that. But [the breakups] seem like such a recurrent theme.”
Maher ended the rant with a joke, saying: “At some point, you just want to say, maybe you should write a song called, ‘Maybe It’s Me.’”
You can watch the full episode of the podcast above. Skip to 33:02 for the portion about Swift.
While the episode was released on Sunday, Swifties began firing back at Maher once his remarks were spread on social media.
“Bill Maher making embarrassingly outdated jokes about Taylor Swift writing songs about her exes and “maybe she should write a song called ‘Maybe It’s Me’ is wildly par for the course,” writes X user @brunettegiant. “Imagine thinking you’re funny but using a 2009 trope as your reference. What a clown.”
“Another deeply unfamous and unfunny man taking shots at taylor’s personal life by calling her songwriting tacky. Fuck Bill Maher,” writes @lunarvalleys. “These unknown men and their audacity.”
In February, Maher discussed Swift’s presence at Kelce’s games on his HBO talk show Real Time With Bill Maher. Back then, per The New Yorker, far-right conspiracy theories had floated around that Swift’s regular presence was an indication that the NFL had been fixing the Super Bowl for Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs team.
“This is a person that could literally swing the election. I don’t know what that says about this country,” he said. “But I would just say to the MAGA people that you should be very careful attacking her.”
His tweet sharing the clip cautioned that attacking her would “awaken a sleeping-until-the-afternoon giant”.
Swift has not publicly commented on Maher’s remarks.
Meanwhile, a mass knife attack took place at a Swift-themed dance class in Southport earlier this week, leaving three children dead and more injured.
“These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families,” the singer wrote in a social media statement.
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