Dave Portnoy Tries to Disprove Claims That Taylor Swift Hates Him By Showing Off a Handwritten Note ‘From the Desk of Taylor Swift’
Screenshot via @stoolpresidente on Instagram; AP Photo/Chris Pizzello
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy wants everyone to know he’s not just a real Swiftie — he wants people to know that things are copacetic between him and Taylor Swift herself.
Portnoy is known to be a long-time fan of Swift, and while he was at the Eras Tour concert in Miami this past Saturday, he received an unexpected gift that he said came directly from Swift herself. In an Instagram post on the account for Portnoy’s BFFs Podcast, Portnoy posted images of a handwritten letter “From the Desk of Taylor Swift” that had featured a green wax “13” seal on the envelope — a Swift trademark.
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The note thanked Portnoy for “always being so supportive, so loyal, and for having my back when a lot of people didn’t.” In the past, Portnoy has taken Swift’s side when she was criticized by Dave Grohl, Kanye West, and Scooter Braun. He also defended her against political critics despite their differences.
But one devoted Swiftie wasn’t having it. Portnoy posted a video on his own Instagram account that included video of a TikTok user using the handle @thatserynsworld; in her video she called Portnoy a “performative Swiftie” and claimed that Swift’s camp would “never” reach out to anything connected to Portnoy. He said that while he had an “amazing” time at the concert, this video put a damper on things, and he wanted to clear things up. In his own video, Portnoy said while holding up the note and the envelope:
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.
He added:
That should have been the highlight, right? 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 also said that Swift’s longtime publicist Tree Paine was “awesome, so nice” implying that she was also involved in the letter exchange or that they had some communication.
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While he briefly proposed that Paine “ban” that user from Eras Tour shows for “gatekeeping,” Portnoy ended his video by “tak[ing] the high road” and saying: “Let’s practice love.”
