Rachel Zegler wants Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” podcast hosts to “leave Taylor Swift alone” after they made a “cruel” comment about a hypothetical sex tape between the songstress and Travis Kelce.
“The way men feel entitled to speak about women, their bodies, and their sex lives needs to be seriously evaluated,” Zegler, 22, shared via X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, October 3. “You will never see people speaking this way about a man. That goes for a lot of different scenarios. We do not pick apart men’s attitudes and relationships the way we do women’s.”
Zegler’s social media post came amid ongoing backlash against “Pardon My Take” podcast host Dan “Big Cat” Katz who said he would only approve of Swift, 33, and Kelce’s romance under one condition.
“If Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift release a sex video, I’ll consummate this relationship and be like, fine,” he shared on his show on Monday, October 2. “You guys can have sex, you can be boyfriend girlfriend — I don’t buy it until I see some d—k in vagina. I’m saying that right now. … P in V otherwise it’s not real.”
Katz and cohost Eric Sollenberger — otherwise known as PFT Commenter — continued to make comments about what they would deem as acceptable.
“I’ll be like, ‘These two lovebirds, they can’t get their hands off each other.’ It’s fine,” Katz continued. “Until that happens, I think it’s fake and I think it’s for clicks and I think Taylor Swift is using the NFL to try to make her star bigger.”
Kelce, 33, and Swift have been the talk of the sports world — and the entire internet — in recent weeks. The pair sparked romance rumors after Kelce, 33, made comments in July about trying to give Swift his number. Swift has since been spotted at two of his Kansas City Chiefs NFL games — the Chiefs v. Bears on September 24 and Chiefs v. Jets on October 1.
“Taylor’s really enjoying getting to know Travis,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively on October 3. “They’re taking it day by day, but she has high hopes. She likes that he’s a normal, nice guy. He’s down-to-earth and isn’t affected by fame. She also thinks he’s hot.”
While Swift has yet to acknowledge Katz’s comments, the Swifites were quick to come to her defense and call out the podcast host. (Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy also weighed in on Katz’s “grotesque comments.”)
Zegler, for her part, used her platform to turn this into a larger conversation about how women are spoken about.
“It’s not always just men who speak this way about us. women can and do, too. it sucks,” her social media posts continued. The West Side Story actress also fielded replies from X users who claimed Katz was making a joke.
“You’ve got to understand that since the beginning of time ‘you can’t take a joke’ has been synonymous with ‘let me say a horrible thing about women without suffering the consequences’ — we’re sick and tired!” Zegler wrote. “It’s never been funny! Get a life!”
