Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce – plus the Super Bowl and Joe Biden: Conservatives in the USA like to knit conspiracy myths out of these ingredients. The fans participate more or less – depending on which side you ask.
Michael and Lisa laugh their heads off. The Super Bowl is rigged so that the Kansas City Chiefs can win and pop queen Taylor Swift can announce her support for President Joe Biden? “We are very political people. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. So much work for such a small thing that wouldn’t benefit anyone anyway,” says Michael. And anyway: Those who love Swift the most are not yet eligible to vote.
Michael and Lisa both live in Los Angeles and, like thousands of other fans, are drifting through the city that evening. Their team is the Kansas City Chiefs. Michael wears Travis Kelce’s number 87 – Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. And Michael has no doubt that the relationship between the two is real. “Swift hanging out with quarterback Mahomes’ wife and kissing his mother is real,” he says.
Advertising contracts thanks to Taylor Swift?
Others aren’t so sure. Since it became known little by little this fall that the singer and the football player are a couple, speculation and rumors have been rife. This is all just a publicity stunt to better market Travis Kelce, says 49ers fan Stephen from Phoenix, Arizona. As soon as he teamed up with her, he started getting advertising contracts, says Stephen.
In fact, Kelce has been signed to companies before. He’s funny, good-looking and popular – that’s what works. But what is true is that the number of his spots has increased significantly in the past few months. What conservative fans and TV commentators resent him for is his advertising for Pfizer and vaccination, which reportedly earned him $20 million.
This relationship was “manufactured in a laboratory,” claims Jesse Watters, star host on Fox News. And Swift’s friend Travis is supported by Pfizer – it’s a match made in corporate heaven. Colleague Sean Hannity wonders if Taylor is aware that the guy she’s supposed to be supporting is “a stumbling, mumbling misery”?
Swift called for Biden to be elected
It is true that Taylor Swift, like many artists, is at home in the liberal camp. She stands behind the LGBTQI movement and believes in women’s solidarity. She publicly supported Joe Biden in 2020, shortly before the election. And, according to US media reports, Joe Biden is actually interested in using your vote in the election campaign.
But a secret plot surrounding the Super Bowl? That seems very daring to Anne, a Chiefs fan from Las Vegas: “It’s not rigged. I was worried about quarterback Patrick Mahomes. He fought his way through the Buffalo Bills and the Ravens and they definitely have their place earned.”
And Lisa has had enough of the topic now. It’s nice that Swift is there, she says, but now it’s about Mahomes and Kelce and not about her.
Katrin Brand, ARD Washington, tagesschau, February 10, 2024 7:32 p.m