Lifestyle
Here's why conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl are spreading
Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrates with Taylor Swift after a 17-10 victory against the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 28, 2024 in Baltimore.
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Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrates with Taylor Swift after a 17-10 victory against the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 28, 2024 in Baltimore.
Patrick Smith/Getty Images
Taylor Swift has been one of the most dominant cultural figures of the past year, between her billion-dollar Eras Tour and accompanying film, a slew of Grammy nominations, and a high-profile romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce that’s made her a fixture of the National Football League season.
But Swift’s popularity is being twisted into a threat by a contingent of far-right, Donald Trump-supporting conservatives who have started circulating conspiracy theories about the singer, the Super Bowl, and the 2024 election.
During the Chiefs’ conference championship game against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, Mike Crispi, a pro-Trump podcast host on the right-wing Salem Media Group, posted a rant claiming the NFL had “RIGGED” a Chiefs victory.
“All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield. It’s all been an op since day one,” Crispi wrote on X. (This will be the Chiefs’ fourth Super Bowl appearance in the past five years.)
When the Chiefs pulled off a win, speculation went wild, casting Swift’s relationship with Kelce as a plot to tip the presidential contest in Biden’s favor.
“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall,” former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has pushed debunked conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6th insurrection, the 2020 election, and 9/11, wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.
Unfounded claims about Swift’s alleged role as a government plant have been swirling for some time. Last month, Fox News host Jesse Watters speculated that Swift might be a Pentagon “psyop” — an asset used for psychological operations.
“Is Swift a front for a covert political agenda?” he asked. While noting that he had no evidence, he pointed to Swift’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 and her recent encouragement that fans register to vote, which led to a surge in registrations. The Pentagon rejected Watters’ claim.
But the collision of the Super Bowl and a contentious presidential race have propelled the right-wing backlash to new heights. A New York Times report this week that Biden’s campaign is hoping Swift will endorse him again this year added further fuel to the fire.
Influential right-wing figures including Jack Posobiec, who pushed the baseless Pizzagate conspiracy theory, and radio host Charlie Kirk have weighed in. Conservative cable outlets have dedicated multiple segments to Swift, with Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro urging her, “Don’t get involved in politics. We don’t wanna see you there.”
Monetizing attention
The strategy of attacking a pop icon, as well as a cultural institution like the NFL, might seem counterproductive, given that both Swift and football are very popular across the political spectrum.
However, the business of many figures in the very online Trump-supporting world is capture and monetize attention, said Joan Donovan, assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University who studies online discourse.
“It’s a play for engagement. If you look at interest in Taylor Swift and the crossover with the NFL, you want to be part of those conversations online,” Donovan said.
Mentions of Swift on fringe, right-wing internet sites like Trump’s Truth Social, have spiked in the last week, according to data from Pyrra Technologies, which tracks smaller platforms.
It’s not the first time Swift has been the target of conspiracy theories and right-wing ire.
For years, the singer avoided politics entirely, but her background in country music fueled speculation, without evidence, that she might be a Republican and a Trump supporter. In 2016, Vice reported on white supremacists who claimed Swift as an “Aryan Goddess.”
Swift broke her political silence in 2018, endorsing a Democratic opponent to Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, whom Swift called “Trump in a wig,” in her home state of Tennessee. She openly supports LGBTQ rights and Black Lives Matter, and condemned Trump during the 2020 protests following George Floyd’s death.
Her evolution from teen ingenue to 30-something, unmarried, successful businesswoman has also been a break with conservative ideals of femininity, Donovan said.
“Amongst the right wing, because she is getting older and hasn’t had children and whatnot, she’s less seen as the traditional ‘wifey’ material,” she said. “In broad terms, Taylor Swift represents older, independent women who do not need male support to have a career, to self-determine where they’re going.”
More recently, her relationship with Kelce, the Chiefs tight end, has added fuel to conservative criticisms. Kelce has also been attacked by conservatives because he’s done commercials for Pfizer vaccines and Bud Light.
Attention begets abuse
The attention focused on Swift doesn’t just draw conspiracy theories. It also attracts abuse — and specifically, the kind of abuse that is disproportionately targeted at women online.
In the last week, AI-generated sexually explicit images of Swift went viral on X and other social media sites, racking up tens of millions of views. The incident has resurfaced the prevalence of nonconsensual deepfake pornography, a problem that has plagued not only celebrities, but also regular women and girls, for years.
“The point of gendered abuse, the point of casting Taylor Swift in this light where she is not necessarily her own self-actualized person making her own decisions … and putting her in this sexualized light is to demean her and to undermine her power,” said Nina Jankowicz, a researcher and author of the book How To Be A Woman Online. “She’s just a sexual object, she’s just a tool of the Biden administration.”
Jankowicz herself also been the victim of conspiracy theories and explicit deepfakes. She said she hopes the attention paid to the recent attacks on Swift will also highlight the harms of this kind of abuse on people who do not have the resources of a global superstar.
Xie Miao and Yang Enyou in The Furious.
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A tarp covers the facade of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on June 13. A federal judge has asked the arts complex’s leadership to explain the purpose of the tarp and the surrounding scaffolding.
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On Wednesday, the federal judge overseeing the Kennedy Center lawsuit ordered the center to give him a status report on the center’s operation and programming within the next few weeks. Judge Christopher R. Cooper also said that the Kennedy Center must explain the purpose and status of the tarp and scaffolding that have been placed over the front of the arts complex, where until recently both President Trump and President John F. Kennedy’s names were both displayed.
In a directive issued last Tuesday, Judge Cooper had given Kennedy Center administrators three days to update him on the arts complex’s immediate plans regarding construction, programming and public access. Trump, who now serves as the center’s chairman, had announced July 5 as the date the venue would close for major renovations.
Last Friday, on Cooper’s due date, lawyers for the Kennedy Center filed a request asking for an extension. In that filing, Matt Floca, who was promoted as the center’s president and CEO in March, said that the Kennedy Center’s current management intends to present its board with “an array of options” for trustees to vote on at their next meeting on an unspecified date in mid-July.
According to Floca, the options are a complete closure for extensive renovations; a partial closure “enabling some continued public access and limited programming” while some renovations are undertaken; and “a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming.”
In his newest order, Cooper denied Floca’s request for an extension. And he mandated that the center file a status report within seven days of the center’s July board meeting or by July 31, whichever date is earliest. He also ruled that the report must “indicate the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding,” which were erected by workers over the center’s front signage in the early morning hours of June 13.
When asked for comment Wednesday, the Kennedy Center pointed back to the documents its legal team submitted to the court.
The tarp and scaffolding on the center’s front portico went up after the Kennedy Center’s administration slow-walked the court-mandated removal of President Trump’s name from the front of the center and from all digital materials, which was supposed to happen no later than June 12. Workers removed the lettering overnight into the following morning, hours after the federal court’s original deadline, and covered the center’s sign with a tarpaulin.
As of Monday, the sign remains hidden from the public.
Trump’s name was scrubbed from all of the Kennedy Center’s digital content on June 4, the same day an email order to do so was issued by the complex’s legal team; NPR obtained this memo the day it was sent out to Kennedy Center staff.
These court orders are part of the ongoing lawsuit filed by Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, against President Trump and the board of the Kennedy Center. Earlier this year, Cooper ruled that Beatty, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board, must be allowed to participate in board meetings. NPR has asked Beatty if she plans to vote at the July board meeting, but did not receive an immediate response.
It would be very difficult for the Kennedy Center to revive a thriving programming lineup for the months ahead. Over the past year, many prominent artists canceled their planned appearances, citing the politicization of the venue. Most of the center’s programming staff have departed, either via layoffs or resignations. Unlike top administrators at other major performing arts venues around the country, Matt Floca has no experience in artistic direction, fundraising or arts administration; formerly, he was the center’s head of facilities, and he holds a bachelor’s degree in construction management.
Established artists who typically perform at the Kennedy Center generally have their touring schedules set at least a year in advance, if not multiple years ahead. In years past, the center has publicly announced its upcoming season in mid-spring for performances beginning in September and running through the following summer.
Currently, only a handful of outdoor free movie screenings of nostalgic favorites like The Princess Diaries and Clue appear on the center’s calendar of events, along with some participatory workshops for kids. In the past, the Kennedy Center presented over 2,000 arts and education events each year.
The center also recently became ensnarled in litigation with one of its longtime tenants and artistic partners. On June 12, the Washington National Opera, a company formerly in residence at the Kennedy Center, sued the complex for $17 million. It claims that the Kennedy Center had withheld “years’ worth of donor gifts, bequests and endowment funds” that had been intended specifically for the WNO.
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I tend to romanticize summer. The movies and TV shows I grew up with made me think that the season was about adventure and big-time transformation.
I imagined myself building a tight-knit friend group and getting out of a pickle together, like in The Sandlot or Camp Nowhere. Or traveling across the world, say, to Greece, like Lena Kaligaris, a character in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, having a whirlwind summer romance and returning an entirely different person.
I’ve never actually had a summer like that.
Even when your expectations are more modest than mine, “so often, the summer just flies by, and we haven’t taken the picnics or gone for the day trip or whatever it was that we thought we were gonna do,” says happiness expert Gretchen Rubin.
Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and host of the podcast Happier With Gretchen Rubin, has been sharing ideas on social media about how to make the season more memorable and satisfying.
She walks through four exercises to help you get what you want — and more — out of the season. Print out our worksheet here, fill it out and stick it on your fridge to keep you accountable. Or take a screenshot and post it to Instagram (don’t forget to tag @NPRLifeKit!).
🍑 Give your summer a theme
Pick a single word or phrase that you want to embrace this season — something that captures the feeling you want to have over the next few months.
“My theme for the summer is ‘ketchup,’” Rubin says. “It has a kind of a summer feeling, because you think of putting ketchup on your burger.”
“It’s a metaphor,” she says. It means to look for “whatever I could add [this season] to make something elevated and more fun.”
Meanwhile, my theme word this summer is “juice.” I no longer think that I need to travel far or completely transform to have a delicious summer. I just need to take advantage of the abundance that the season offers: ripe peaches and tomatoes, juicy softball pitches and the opportunity to feel juicy in my body when I wear a bathing suit.
Print out our worksheet here, fill it out and stick it on your fridge to keep you accountable. Or take a screenshot and post it to Instagram (don’t forget to tag @NPRLifeKit!).
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🪣 Create a summer bucket list
What do you want to do this summer? On my bucket list: ride the Ferris wheel at a summer fair, have more barbecues at my parents’ house and see the sunrise at least once.
There might even be something you don’t necessarily want to do but have been trying to accomplish for a long time — like cleaning out the garage or learning how to swim.
“Some people love a long list with a lot of easy things to cross off,” Rubin says. “I’m a fan of that approach myself.”
But some people like a list with fewer goals that are more ambitious. If you take this path, just make those items realistic, she says. “It’s easy to get discouraged if you set the bar too high.”
🏁 Set a fun challenge
It could be fun to gamify a few of the items on your bucket list — or to come up with an entirely different kind of dare for yourself.
You might try 10 new taco joints this summer or read five romance novels. Or you might come up with a theme, like “Freaky Flavor Friday,” Rubin says. Every Friday, you go to a different ice cream shop and try a new and ambitious flavor.
A good challenge can make your summer feel more memorable, she says. “If you did ‘Freaky Flavor Friday’ all summer long, that would stand out in your mind. Years later, you’d be like, ‘That’s the summer I discovered creamed corn ice cream.’”
Two challenges I’m considering: taking a swim class and rewatching all the best Pixar movies.
🖼️ Take a “five-senses portrait”
Experience the summer through your five senses — then reflect on each one. What does summer look like, smell like, taste like, sound like and feel like?
“It’s one thing to look at photographs, but that’s very flat,” Rubin says. “A ‘five-senses portrait’ puts you back into that experience. It’s a creative, fun way to look back on summer and capture the memories that you’ve created.”
Do this exercise either for your whole summer or for a specific summer adventure, she says. Do it with yourself or with a group. You can journal about it, make a collage, draw a picture or simply have a conversation.
When I think of summer, here’s what comes to mind: the smell of smoke from a crackling outdoor fire and the taste of toasted marshmallows on a stick.
More summer-worthy goals from Life Kit
Learn how to swim. Knowing how to swim can help you have fun at the pool or beach this summer. But it could also save your life. Here are some tips to start swimming at any age.
Focus on rest and relaxation. In Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s book Sacred Rest, she outlines different kinds of rest you may be craving. From the mental to the physical, Dalton-Smith shares how to identify what kind of respite you need and how to embrace rest.
Get into running. Ready to kick-start a new running habit? Coach Martinus Evans breaks down a common misconception to get you into the mindset and offers quick tips on pace, form and more.
Declutter your home. Got piles of stuff you just can’t seem to get rid of? Professional organizer Star Hansen explains how to let go of unnecessary items and keep your home neat and tidy.
This episode was produced by Clare Marie Schneider. The story was edited by Meghan Keane. The visual editor is CJ Riculan. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and sign up for our newsletter. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit.
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