David Letterman Has Perfect Response to the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Haters: ‘This Is Such a Lovely Thing. Shut Up!’
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, David Letterman is going on record as a lover of love. The prodigious PDA love between Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, to be specific.
The late night legend hit his Instagram on Sunday as the Chiefs punched their ticket to Super Bowl LVIII for a video in which he told all the haters complaining that the pair’s romance is getting more attention than the action on the field to leave TNT alone. “Taylor Swift, I don’t think in the history of show business, in the history of popular culture, we’ve ever witnessed anything like this,” Letterman said in the minute-long video with the caption “Dave is Team Taylor.”
Seated in a living room and looking dead into the camera, the legendarily acerbic Letterman delivered his monologue on the power of love with clear-eyed, open-hearted passion. “We live in a world now where all we hear is nonsense and ugliness, and the nonsense can’t be more nonsensical and the ugliness, God hopes it can’t get any uglier, but that’s all we hear,” he said. “That’s all we hear. So now, here’s Taylor Swift, who is a glowing bright light of goodness in the world.”
Now, Letterman being Letterman, when Dave went on to praise Swift dating Kelce, in his inimitable fashion he mistakenly-on-purpose referred to the ripped 34-year-old Chiefs star as 68-year-old Frasier star Kelsey Grammer. “No, that’s not true, Kelsey Grammer?” a woman’s voice off-camera said as Letterman doubled-down on his moniker muddle.
He then pantomimed how the Grammer fans are mad about the pop star infiltrating football, while the Swifties (he was proud of himself for getting that one right) were saying, “oh we don’t want a footballer in here with Kelsey Grammer!”
But, in the end, Letterman argued, all you need is love.
“I say to both camps, ‘This is such a lovely thing. Shut up! It’s good for the footballers. It’s good for Taylor Swift, and it’s something positive and happy for the world,’” Letterman said. “Also, politically, Taylor Swift is a huge force, and I think just wants to see people do the right thing. So God bless Taylor Swift and Kelsey Grammer.”
Swift and Kelce have been a public couple since September, when the “Love Story” singer attended her first KC game. During a break between legs of her global Eras Tour, Swift has been a regular fixture in the Kelce family skybox at Chiefs games and on Sunday the couple shared a series of sweet moments — and their most public PDA to date — on the field after the Chiefs punched their ticket to Feb. 11’s Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Super Bowl LVII will air on CBS and Nickelodeon and stream on Paramount+, with Usher performing the halftime show.
Watch Letterman’s video velow.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard