From left to right: Zach Bryan & Taylor Swift/Photo credit: Zach's TikTok account/Taylor Swift's Instagram account
Country Singer Zach Bryan is on a social media apology tour after one single tweet earned him some unwanted attention. The Swifties are coming for Bryan today in response to his tweet on X, formerly Twitter.
His tweet, “eagles > chiefs, Kanye > Taylor, who’s with me” didn’t sit well with most people, prompting Bryan to not only apologize profusely on his Instagram stories, but to delete his X account completely.
The tweet was a brief statement about Bryan’s feelings about the pop superstar and her equally famous NFL boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. Bryan’s post sparked outrage partially because of the old drama between Taylor and Kanye West, which dates back to 2009. It began when Kanye famously interrupted Taylor’s acceptance speech at the 2009 VMAs.
Bryan apologized all over his Instagram stories saying he was tweeting while drunk and that he truly is a fan of both artists’ music. “For the record guys I wasn’t coming for Taylor the other night. I was drunkenly comparing two records and it came out wrong. I know there’s a lot of stuff that clouds around Ye and I was speaking purely musically. I love Taylor’s music and pray you guys know I’m human and tweet stupid things often. Hope one day I can explain this to her. Twitter gets me in trouble too much and I’d say it’s best I stay off it. I’m sorry to any Taylor fans I pissed off or let down. Love you guys and I’m trying my best!”
Bryan wrapped up the apology with the advice, “Don’t drink and tweet!”
Fans on X are heated to say the least. One X user wrote, “Someone get Zach Bryan a PR person & some media training ASAP.” Another fan added, “Mature people can separate an artist from their music. I am not one of those people. Zach Bryan, tayvoodoo is coming.”
But some are vouching for Bryan. One dam wrote, “Zach Bryan did nothing wrong, all he said is that he prefers Kanye over Taylor, not even trashing her. But of course, the Swifties literally take anything said about their goddess as an immediate negative and trash them for no reason. This is why the internet hates you psychos.” And another, in his defense, commented, “What we aren’t gonna do is cancel Zach Bryan, one of the only talented male musicians working today, over a tweet that mentioned Taylor.”
Bryan has a bit of personal drama, which he references in his Instagram apology, notably his brief marriage to Rose Madden in July 2020 which broke up a year later. He was also seen dating podcaster Brianna LaPaglia as well as Deb Peifer. Bryan first gained fame with his 2022 album American Heartbreak, which featured the hit single Something in the Orange. He was named New Male Artist of the Year in 2023 by the Academy of Country Music Awards. Bryan used YouTube to reach potential fans by putting his iPhone recordings online in 2017. Two years later, his debut album, DeAnn was released. Today, Bryan has five studio albums.