Taylor Swift Was Booed at the Super Bowl—and Donald Trump Was Cheered. What Is Going on? Aren't we over this particular kind of misogyny?

Glamour ^ | February 9, 2025 | Kathleen Walsh

[DoodleBob]

We must be living in the Upside Down right now, because why is Taylor Swift being booed at the Super Bowl while Donald Trump gets cheers?

Early into the first quarter of the 2025 Super Bowl, Swift was shown on the Jumbotron sitting next to Ice Spice, and was greeted with an immediate chorus of boos. The singer gave the camera a top-tier Jim Halpert side-eye and seemed to say to her seatmate, “What is going on?” Frankly, I have the same question.

Last year, when Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship was new, certain NFL fans took bizarre umbrage with the pop star being shown on the big screen during games. Swift was just trying to support her boyfriend, but some men (and let’s be honest, it was mostly all men) took her presence as a personal affront. It got to a point where even Kelce’s brother, fellow NFL player Jason Kelce, used his own platform to support the NFL showing the singer during games. “The attention’s there because the audience wants to see it,” he said. However, by the time the Kansas City Chiefs were playing in the 2024 Super Bowl, the football-watching world seemed to have gotten a grip, and the anti-Swift attitude had died down. Cut to the 2025 game, and suddenly Taylor Swift is persona non grata? Make it make sense.

The booing was especially striking given the Super Bowl audience’s reaction to Trump—who is by all measures a much more divisive figure in the United States right now. When the president was shown during Jon Batiste’s performance of the national anthem, the crowd seemed to cheer appreciatively. I can’t be the only one who remembers Trump’s stance on the NFL in 2017, when he reacted to players kneeling during the anthem as a protest against racism and police brutality by calling on NFL owners to drag those players off the field.

Swift, in contrast, has done nothing but increase NFL viewership, if anything. (To make matters worse, Trump later reposted a graphic on Truth Social that read, “Trump gets massive cheers at the Super bowl while Taylor Swift gets booed. The world is healing!”)

So, what exactly is the crowd’s beef with Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl? Is it just that she’s a powerful woman and football fans find that threatening? Is it because her fans largely tend to be women and the NFL’s audience often skews male? Because I’ve racked my brain and misogyny is the only plausible explanation I can come up with. And if that’s the vibe, what’s the incentive for any of Swift’s legions of global fans, or people who care about misogyny in general, to keep tuning in to the NFL?

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Kathleen Walsh is a contributing writer for Glamour, where she covers all things celebrity and entertainment, and some things politics. Over her decade of writing and editing experience, Kathleen’s op-eds and deep dives on the intersection of feminism and pop culture have been published in the New York Times, The Cut, InStyle, and others. She is a contributing TV recapper at Vulture and previously served as the TV Editor at BDG’s Romper.

In addition to entertainment news, at Glamour, Kathleen’s work has covered everything from in-depth explainers on abortion access in a post-Roe world, to Vanderpump Rules opinion pieces, to interviews with the likes of Lizzo, Nicholas Galitzine, and Towa Bird, among others.

Kathleen is a staunch defender of reproductive rights, ballet flats, and The Vampire Diaries, and can be found online either lurking on TikTok or on X at @kath_walsh.

[DoodleBob]

[Allegra]

It’s not misogyny, Kathleen.

However, I have neither the patience nor the crayons to explain it to you.

[mfish13]

Amen to that.

[clee1]

Trump is a heroic American President. Tay Tay is a pop tart nearing the end of her 15 mins of fame.

[dowcaet]

Cope harder Kathleen.

[BradyLS]

Nothing about football. Everything about the celebrity blitz in the final two minutes of the campaign to prop up Go Brandon. Which Taylor was a part of that failed spectacularly.

[chajin]

Philly fans boo anyone who isn’t on their side, and Taylor as Kelce’s squeeze isn’t on their side.

[Mark17]

👍👍👍👍👍

[BradyLS]

Sorry. “…to support Kamala Harris…”

[Jamestown1630]

'she’s a powerful woman and football fans find that threatening?'

No, she's not a powerful woman. She's an intellectually lightweight entertainer who isn't making the difference that President Trump is in our real lives.

[cowboyusa]

Eagles fans dominated. She is from Reading, and turned turncoat.

[WeaslesRippedMyFlesh]

Make me a sammich.

[ClearCase_guy]

Aren't we over this particular kind of misogyny?

The author prefers misandry. That stuff is double-plus good.

[atc23]

Was that Jazzy Jeff doing the Sesame Street version of the National Anthem? Serieslee- what the Hell was that about? And who the Hell is “Ice Spice”?

[TXBlair]

What a dunce. And she works for Glamour; that’s ironic. She needs to find a magazine called Homely.

[John Milner]

Taylor Swift has been shown at approximately a million KC Chiefs games because of romance with a Chiefs player

Probably approx half the fans at the Superbowl were Eagles fans. They’re going to boo her just because of her association with the Chiefs. Being a-hole Eagles fans couldn’t hurt either.

[stevio]

Ouch!

[cowboyusa]

Super Bowl Champs, Baby!

[SaxxonWoods]

No, we aren’t over it, it drives you nuts too easily and distracts you from doing anything dangerous.

[Jamestown1630]

I bet they never marry...