Jo Koy‘s joke about the attention surrounding Taylor Swift‘s relationship with Travis Kelce didn’t exactly land well — with anyone.
“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift. I swear,” Koy, 52, said during the 2024 Golden Globes on Sunday, January 7. “There’s just more to go to.”
Swift, 34, who was in the audience, was far from pleased by Koy’s humor. She awkwardly took a sip from her drink while Koy changed the subject. Fans took to social media to show their support for Swift over the cringey joke.
“Taylor Swift being unamused by Jo Koy, she’s really just like us!” wrote one person via X (formerly Twitter) alongside a screenshot of the singer’s face. Meanwhile, another viewer asked, “Too late to add Jo Koy to the In Memoriam montage? I think Taylor just ended him.”
Swift’s romance with Kelce, 34, has been a major topic of conversation since they went public in September 2023. After Swift started to show her support at Kansas City Chiefs’ games, the NFL decided to capitalize off the attention by using her music for promotional clips and often pointing the camera at her during broadcasts.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell showed his support for the craze surrounding Swift and Kelce’s relationship, telling CBS in November 2023, “They seem to be enjoying their relationship. That’s great in and of itself, but it has connected more fans of Taylor’s and more fans of the NFL in some ways. [Swift is] an unbelievable artist, obviously, Travis is an unbelievable player and I think it’s great for the league to have that kind of attention — so we welcome it.”
Swift, meanwhile, waved off the negative reactions from some football fans.
“I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in. There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once,” Swift told TIME in December 2023 about the attention. “I’m just there to support Travis [Kelce]. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”
Swift and Kelce quietly started dating after he revealed his crush on the singer after attending the Kansas City stop on her Eras Tour in July. Kelce has since opened up about the unexpected interest in his personal life.
“I know I brought all this attention to me. I’m the one that … did the whole friendship bracelet thing and told everybody how butthurt I was that I didn’t get to meet Taylor. What’s real is that it is my personal life and I want to respect both of our lives,” he said on a September 2023 episode of his “New Heights” podcast. “She’s not in the media as much as I am, doing this show every single week and having fun during the NFL season on other guys’ shows.”
During her conversation with TIME, Swift made it clear that she’s focusing on the positive, adding, “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care.”
She concluded: “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”
