ESPN sportscaster Elle Duncan is done with the “dads, Brads and Chads” blaming Taylor Swift for Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs’ game day performances.
“Do not blame Taylor Swift for being a ‘distraction’ for Travis Kelce not playing well, for the Chiefs playing good. No, it is not her fault,” Duncan, 40, said during the latest episode of her “Elle Duncan Show” podcast. “I am so tired of us doing this. And we do this to women.”
She continued: “It’s Jessica Simpson’s fault [that] Tony Romo spit the bit. Remember Kim Kardashian and Miles Austin for a hot second? It’s her fault. It’s always the woman’s fault for ‘distracting.’ Nobody’s asking if Travis Kelce is distracting her from a world tour. No one’s saying that. And I don’t like that.”
Swift, 34, has been a fixture at boyfriend Kelce’s Chiefs games since September when they took their summer romance public. During the games, the NFL has frequently shown Swift on the Jumbotron, earning the ire of diehard sports viewers.
Swift and her family — mom Andrea, dad Scott and brother Austin — recently attended the Chiefs’ Christmas Day game. After Kelce, also 34, and his team lost to the Las Vegas Raiders, social media fans immediately blamed the loss on Swift’s presence.
“Feels like it’s about time to call Taylor Swift a distraction. What do you think, Patrick? Andy? How about you, Travis?” FOX sports journalist Skip Bayless wrote via X (formerly Twitter) at the time.
Duncan, for her part, is over Bayless, 72, and other NFL fans citing Swift as the sole reason that the Chiefs are underperforming this season.
“I don’t like that all of sudden that this has become, ‘This is too much, let’s turn it on Taylor. He’s distracted,’ like he can’t carry on a personal life and also a professional life,” Duncan pressed. “Get out of here. He’s Travis Kelce, stop. She’s not to blame. So please stop. Full stop on that narrative. Not OK. Stop.”
Swift and Kelce, meanwhile, haven’t let the online chatter deter their romance.
“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,” Swift previously told TIME in her Person of the Year cover story earlier this month. “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.”
Kelce even called out the very same “dads, Brads and Chads” for booing Swift during the Monday, December 25, game.
“I’ll say this, they showed Taylor at the game, and you don’t see an entire home team fanbase go insane for somebody wearing the opposite team’s colors. Just shows you how amazing that girl is,” he said on the Wednesday, December 27, episode of his “New Heights” podcast. “They went absolutely insane when they showed Taylor on the screen. … I was trying to keep it cool, I was like, ‘Don’t show your cards.’”
