Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is facing backlash after making comments about his wife during a graduation speech over the weekend — and encouraging women to embrace their role as “homemakers.”
Butker, 28, was addressing students as the commencement speaker at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas on Saturday, May 11, when he singled out his female audience.
“For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment,” he said. “You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.”
He continued, “How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross this stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
At one point, he also brought up Taylor Swift — but not by name.
“As my teammate’s girlfriend says, ‘familiarity breeds contempt,'” Butker said, referring to Travis Kelce and quoting Swift’s “Bejeweled.”
The athlete then brought up his wife, Isabelle, who he claimed would be the “first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” He then credited her for being the reason he is “the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation.”
Butker went on to detail more of the impact his wife, who married the Super Bowl star in 2018, has made on his life.
@ericaf455 Graduating #women should lean in to the vocation of being a homemaker??!!🫣😳😡#smh #realitycheck #harrisonbutker
“I’m beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith and become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all — homemaker,” he said.
The speech went viral across social media over the weekend, after which Butker deleted all photos of Isabelle on his Instagram account.
One user wrote via TikTok, “Imagine sitting through his speech at your graduation after working so hard for your degree …”, while another person wrote, “I don’t know, I think I’m gonna enjoy my title: physician scientist MD/PhD.”
Butker met his wife in high school and the couple share two children.
He proposed to Isabelle in 2017, one month after he was drafted into the NFL by the Carolina Panthers and before signing with the Chiefs later that year.
In a now deleted Instagram post, Butker had written at the time, “After almost 7 years of being best friends with this girl, I finally popped the question. From the first moments of our relationship, back in freshman year of high school, I always envisioned marrying you and raising a family together.”
