The megawatt coupling of Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce and pop superstar Taylor Swift defined cozy companionship this fall. Swift has supported her new boyfriend at NFL games from New Jersey to Wisconsin, and Kelce has flown thousands of miles to watch her perform around the globe. The pair has been the subject of breathless coverage and sometimes unhinged social media speculation. But something shifted on Christmas Day, after the Chiefs were upset in a key game by the Las Vegas Raiders. Kelce, one of the Chiefs’ most important offensive weapons, failed to score a touchdown for the fifth game in a row.
“Feels like it’s about time to call Taylor Swift a distraction,” influential Fox Sports host Skip Bayless wrote on X. “What do you think, Patrick? Andy? How about you, Travis?”
Feels like it's about time to call Taylor Swift a distraction. What do you think, Patrick? Andy? How about you, Travis?
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) December 25, 2023
And Bayless wasn’t the only one who blamed Swift, at least in part, for the loss. Clay Travis, founder of conservative site OutKick and an outspoken Covid-19 conspiracy theorist, launched a dusty comparison to Yoko Ono: “Travis Kelce looks like he should retire. He’s been worthless the last seven or eight weeks. The double worthless Pfizer shots may have caught up with him. Either that or Taylor Swift is the Chiefs Yoko Ono. Maybe both.”
Once upon a time, a woman became a byword for destroying men’s professional lives, and yet here we are, still invoking Yoko Ono as if time and history haven’t shifted our perceptions of both feminism and John Lennon. Avant-garde artist Ono was once blamed for breaking up the Beatles, but people who can read should now understand the myriad factors behind the band’s dissolution, as well as the anti-Asian sentiment that fueled much of the hate.
Blaming Yoko Ono was never about the facts. It was about trying to tear down women who seemed to have power over men.
But of course, blaming Yoko Ono was never about the facts. It was about trying to tear down women who seemed to have power over men. Women who changed how we saw our heroes and who challenged our ideas of masculinity by making these powerful men seem even slightly vulnerable.
In the 1990s, the same thing happened to Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. The two musicians both had bands before meeting, but she was still dragged through the mud and blamed for Cobain considering changing the trajectory of his musical career — as if men can’t evolve as artists, be inspired, or wish for something different. Some conspiracy theorists even accused her of being responsible for his death, putting an unthinkably cruel twist on the sexist trope.
Breaking up the band? Try being accused of breaking up Britain’s royal family. Meghan Markle has arguably had to deal with more hatred than Wallis Simpson — because Markle is a Black woman, I’d wager — over the choices her husband has made. Acting together as a family in their children’s best interest, Meghan and Prince Harry left the environment that he saw led to the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Called “controlling” by the tabloids, Meghan was harassed by the press and said she contemplated suicide. The former first lady of France, Carla Bruni, even posted an edited picture from Harry and Meghan’s engagement photo shoot — with Yoko Ono’s head pasted onto the duchess.
The partners of professional athletes, however, have arguably borne the brunt of these comparisons. Before Taylor Swift there was Jessica Simpson, who dated Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo in the early aughts. Bayless had a problem with that relationship too, claiming that he was “very down” on Romo’s performance “because of his tumultuous relationship with Jessica Simpson, which I thought was affecting his ability to focus and dedicate himself to playing quarterback.”
On a Cowboys blog, Simpson was compared to both Ono and Memo Paris from “The Natural” (1984): “Is Jessica Simpson the football version of Memo Paris, the blond bombshell who was kryptonite to Roy Hobbs’ Wonderboy in ‘The Natural’? Everybody’s due a bad day at the office, but if Romo plays like this next week, Jessica Simpson will become the most hated celebrity significant other since Yoko Ono.” The Ono “curse” has additionally been attached to country star Carrie Underwood (married to hockey star Mike Fisher), actress Olivia Munn (while dating quarterback Aaron Rodgers) and Spice Girls member Victoria Beckham (married to David Beckham). When emotions are high among sports fans, it’s helpful to find a scapegoat. Even better if that scapegoat is a ‘dumb blonde.’ Athletes, just like other celebrities, are not machines. They are humans who have good and bad days, feelings, aches and pains, anxiety, and yes, new romantic partners. If the Chiefs had won every game since Swift and Kelce started dating, she would likely be hailed as a good-luck charm — because apparently women are magical objects, not people. Superstitions run rampant in sports culture, but so does sexism. And when emotions are high among sports fans, it’s helpful to find a scapegoat. Even better if that scapegoat is a “dumb blonde.” Sometimes, crap just happens. “On offense, we struggled,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said in a press conference after the Christmas game. “That’s my responsibility to make sure we put the guys in the right position to make plays, and that didn’t happen the way we wanted it to. I take full responsibility for the way we played offensively there.” Seems fair and logical — but will football fans buy it? Or will we start hearing whispers about how Swift has hidden the entire team away in one of her tiny purses?
Patricia Grisafi
Patricia Grisafi, Ph.D., is a freelance writer and editor. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Salon, Vice, LARB, Catapult, Self, Narratively, The Rumpus, Business Insider and elsewhere. She lives in New York City with her husband, son and two rescue pit bulls. 
