Former tennis player Andy Roddick has slammed Fox News host Harris Faulkner for telling Taylor Swift to keep politics out of her Eras Tour.
An Instagram post by Swift on Tuesday quickly led to viral speculation that the star was making a veiled endorsement of Kamala Harris for the upcoming election. The photograph shared shows Swift performing during the "Lover" set of her tour stop in Warsaw, Poland, with a silhouetted woman standing behind her waving with her back to the camera. A number of social media users remarked that the woman resembled Harris, fueling speculation about a possible endorsement.
However, the photograph, which was featured on the seventh slide of the post commemorating the Warsaw concerts, appears to simply feature a background singer walking on the stage before Swift's performance of her song "Lover."
This didn't stop Fox News hosts from discussing the potential endorsement, which resulted in Roddick disagreeing with Faulkner when she said Swift doesn't "need to serve up politics."
Newsweek emailed Fox News and spokespeople for Swift and Roddick for comment on Thursday.
"Imagine someone telling @taylorswift13 how/what to perform. At her own show ....... Imagine telling her to shut up and dribble, but also asking Scott Baio/Ted Nugent about campaign strategy on air," Roddick posted on his X account, formerly Twitter. At the time of writing, Roddick's post has been viewed 213,600 times.
His post was in response to a video of the Fox News segment shared by the X account Republicans against Trump, in which Faulker and her co-stars discussed whether Swift was endorsing Harris on stage.
"I think two things about this, the tickets are extremely expensive to go see her. I know because, you know my Bella's 16th birthday, that's what she wanted, she's a huge Taylor Swift fan. And, uh, if we're going to pay that much money as consumers, you don't need to serve up politics for that," Faulkner said.
"It's divided us as such a nation, why can't you go to a concert without that? She can vote any kind of way she wants, she can talk about it off stage, but when people pay to see you, just perform. And by the way, I mean this is just my take on that picture, if you're a backup dancer why are you in a suit? I mean you can see that that's a blazer and those are pants."
As someone in the background said "That's a guy," Faulkner responded: "Whoever it is is wearing a suit and I don't know, maybe that, is there a song where she sings 'I went to the corporate office?'"
Even though there weren't any direct comments made from Swift or concrete evidence, the endorsement claim spread quickly across social media by both left and right-leaning accounts on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.
A video posted to X by user Jacob Wulff, who identifies himself as a Donald Trump supporter, further debunks the claim. The full video from the concert shows the background singer walking toward the back of the stage in between songs while Swift addresses the crowd.
"Thankfully it's not Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris. I found the raw video. Myth busted," he wrote.
Despite people's speculation, Swift hasn't endorsed anyone for the 2024 presidential election, though Democrats remain optimistic about that possibility. An endorsement could be a boost to a campaign due to Swift's massive popularity and fan base. However, she did back President Joe Biden and Harris during their 2020 campaign.
In an October 2020 interview with V magazine, Swift said she was "proudly" voting for Biden because she believed the U.S. had a chance to "start the healing process it so desperately needs" under his leadership.
"The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included," she said.
"Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first," Swift continued. "The only way we can begin to make things better is to choose leaders who are willing to face these issues and find ways to work through them."
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
