Rachel Zegler is “sick and tired” of the way people are picking apart Taylor Swift’s romantic life.
The “West Side Story” star recently spoke up in defense of Swift after the host of Barstool’s popular “Pardon My Take,” Dan “Big Cat” Katz, claimed he needed more proof to believe that Swift is actually in a relationship with NFL tight end Travis Kelce.
“If Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift release a sex video, I’ll consummate this relationship and be like ‘fine, you guys can have sex, you can be boyfriend girlfriend,'” Katz said in a clip from his podcast, which was posted Oct. 2 on X. “I don’t buy it til I see some d— in vagina and I’m saying that right now.”
He continued, “Until that happens, I think [the relationship] is fake and I think it’s for clicks and I think Taylor Swift is using the NFL to try to make her star bigger.”
Rachel Zegler came to Taylor Swift’s defense after a Barstool host made a racy remark about Swift’s dating life. (Cj Rivera / Invision / Associated Press; Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)
Zegler then replied to the video on X by writing, “It’s not news that the media is particularly (and unwarrantedly) cruel to Taylor Swift, but the way men feel entitled to speak about women, their bodies and their sex lives needs to be seriously evaluated.”
Kelce and Swift’s rumored relationship has been the hot topic in the celebrity dating world for the past few weeks. The conversation surrounding the alleged couple has only been further escalated after Swift showed up to two of Kelce’s recent games in Kansas City and New York City.
The “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” actor went on to note the gender dynamics that are at play in discussions about Swift’s personal life.
“You will never see people speaking this way about a man,” Zegler continued in her response. “That goes for a lot of different scenarios. We do not pick apart men’s attitudes and relationships the way we do women’s. And it’s not always just men who speak this way about us. Women can and do, too. It sucks. Leave Taylor Swift alone!”
After seeing many people retort to her comments by trying to convince that Katz was merely joking, Zegler acknowledged the long history of that excuse being levied against women.
“Seeing a lot of ‘it’s a joke’ but you’ve got to understand that since the beginning of time ‘you can’t take a joke’ has been synonymous with ‘let me say a horrible thing about women without suffering the consequences’,” Zegler wrote. “We’re sick and tired! it’s never been funny! get a life!”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
