David Portnoy has slammed a Swifties claim that he is a fake fan of the pop superstar by revealing he had received a handwritten letter from Taylor Swift.
The Barstool Sports founder is a long-time fan of the singer. Portnoy attended the Eras Tour at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and raved about his experience on his BFF's podcast in June 2023. He has also publicly defended Swift in her celebrity feuds with Scooter Braun, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
On Sunday, Portnoy spoke about his experience of going to his second Swift concert on Saturday night, having attended night two of the Eras Tour in Miami. Uploading a video to Instagram, he said the concert was "spectacular," but the night was dampened by a video a woman posted about him online.
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Swift and Portnoy on Monday outside of normal business hours.
"It was an amazing night and I should be on cloud 9 but this girl kind of went viral recently, trashing me, 'Swifties should hate this guy, more importantly, Taylor's camp hates Dave, they never talked to him [or] reached out,'" Portnoy said in the clip.
"They said I've never been to a concert, not true, this is my second one of the Eras Tour. But it should have been a night of celebration, like, this girl though, kind of raining on my parade, being like, 'They don't like you,' this that."
He then inserted a video of the clip he was referring to, where a woman claimed Swift's team has never reached out to Portnoy, Barstool Sports, or anything associated with the businessman, claiming he is a "performative Swiftie."
"I did get the VIP section, which was amazing. You know, I wanted to come on and talk about this letter that Austin Swift, her brother—the 13 there, I obviously opened it—hand-delivered to me in the VIP section from Taylor," Portnoy continued.
"But this girl is like, 'Ooh Taylor hates him, they don't want him there, they don't like him.' This letter from Taylor herself that was hand-delivered to me in the VIP section."
Portnoy then held up the envelope the note came in, which had been sealed with green-colored wax that featured the 14-time Grammy winner's lucky number 13. He then proceeded to show that it said the note came "From the desk of Taylor Swift," before reading it out.
"'Dave, I'm so happy to have you at the show tonight! I wanted to say thank you for always being so supportive, so loyal, and for having my back when a lot of people didn't. I hope you have a blast tonight!! Love, Taylor,'" Portnoy said, reading what the star wrote.
"That should have been the highlight, right?" he continued. "Taylor writing me this hand-delivered note or maybe, when her mother Andrea came over and Austin was like, 'Hey, my mother wants to meet you.' And we had like, a real hug. Like, almost teary, like, a real hug."
Portnoy said Swift's mother told him the family was appreciative of the support he's shown Swift over the years. He also said Tree Paine, Swift's publicist, was "awesome." However, he couldn't stop thinking about the video the woman made about him and slammed her for thinking "she's a gatekeeper of the Swifties." He even said he could ask Paine to ban the woman from future Swift concerts if he wanted to—but he wanted to keep things "positive."
He concluded: "I think Taylor would like me to take the high road so I will but this girl who made this rant about how I'm performative and how Taylor Swift's camp wants nothing to do with me, let's practice love, let's practice love.
"Yes, I had the time of my life, yes, I can't believe I'm at Austin, yes I didn't meet Taylor but I don't think she meets people when she's performing. This means more, to take time out to write a handwritten letter ... so yeah, I'd say it's one of the best nights I've had in a long time."
Portnoy has shown his support for Swift for years now and after the singer endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president of the United States via Instagram on September 10, the Barstool Sports founder, took to X (formerly Twitter) to let fans know that his opinion of the singer does not change regardless of who she votes for.
"As the king of the Swifties people are asking me what I think of her Kamala endorsement. I don't care at all. People can vote for whoever they want in this country. How somebody votes will never change my opinion of a person," he posted.
Portnoy also confirmed he is voting for Republican nominee Donald Trump, writing: "I'm voting the other way but to each their own."
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