Zach Bryan Apologizes for ‘Rude’ Taylor Swift Tweet After Receiving Backlash: ‘Respect Her so Much’

Zach Bryan learned what it’s like to face the wrath of Taylor Swift fans! The country singer issued an apology for his Tuesday, September 17, post on X that read, “Eagles > Chiefs, Kanye > Taylor, who’s with me?”

After receiving backlash for the tweet – which was also a dig at Taylor’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who plays for the Chiefs – Zach, 28, deactivated his X account. He then took to his Instagram Story on Thursday, September 19, to apologize to Taylor, 34, and her fans.

“For the record guys I wasn’t coming for Taylor the other night,” Zach wrote, while showing that he was listening to the pop star’s hit “Fortnight.” “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!”

Taylor has a long, complicated history with Kanye West that dates back to 2009 and boiled over when he sang vulgar lyrics about her on the 2016 track “Famous,” which he claimed she consented to. Taylor denied being made aware of certain specific lyrics on the track, prompting Ye’s then-wife, Kim Kardashian, to release snippets of the stars’ phone call about the situation and begin a campaign that branded Taylor as a “snake” on social media. Taylor has since referred to this as a “career death” that she had to crawl back from. In 2020, the full recording of the phone call was released, which showed that Ye never told Taylor he was going to refer to her as “that bitch” in the song.

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In the next part of his apology, Zach continued, “I’ve been going through a hard time in my own life and I think I was projecting a little. To be completely honest, it just came off as rude and desensitized to Taylor. I respect her so much as a musician that the last thing I want is people thinking I don’t appreciate and love what she has done for music. … Don’t drink and tweet!!”

He went on to share more in another slide. “Not saving face here, but Taylor has been a force of nature for as long as we’ve all been growing up and I admire that. I’m gonna go listen to this record now,” he added, along with a screenshot of the song “Castles Crumbling” featuring Hayley Williams. “I never want people to think I have a hint of malice or meanness towards anyone, ever, that’s why I’m saying all this. Everyone have the best day of all time, I love ya.”

He further tried to explain why he made an error in judgment in his tweet by adding, “This year has been an awful lot on me in personal ways that no one knows and I’ve been trying to cope and balance too many things at once. So I’m going to take a breather from stupid stuff, finish my tour, and ground myself somehow in the midst of all this.”