Leftist singer and entertainer Taylor Swift set off a firestorm on the internet when, during the 2024 Grammy’s, she took her award from Celine Dion, who has a debilitating disease but appeared on stage to give her the award regardless, and mostly ignored Dion while doing so. That infuriated many online, prompting accusations of Swift’s supposed self-centeredness and rudeness.
One commenter, for example, wrote, “Good for her but she should absolutely be ashamed of herself!! She walked on stage, took the Grammy from Celine & dismissed her like she was no one! Celine Dion is battling a disease & I’m sure struggled to even show up! I felt so sorry for her & the way she was treated! Somebody, please teach Ms. Taylor some manners!”
Pro-Swift influencers and commenters quickly chimed in to claim that Swift had not been rude, but rather her understanding that Dion’s illness makes it hard for her to appear on stage and wanting to let her get off quickly, or part of some plan the two of them agreed on before the event. Others claimed she wasn’t even rude. The story was somewhat mixed and non-sensical.
Regardless, as the online war over Swift’s conduct heated up, Taylor’s team jumped into action and pictures of Swift and Dion from backstage at the awards show started circulating, showing the two female entertainers smiling and hugging. The photos were obviously meant to show that there was no anger or intentional disrespect involved.
But a new report claims that the truth of the matter is that Taylor made a major misstep and did, in fact, look quite rude, prompting members of her staff to scramble and put those photos of her and Celine Dion together to appease the internet and get the furor to die down. Such is what Matthew Belloni, the fo-founder of Puck, a digital media company, said on the Monday, February 5 episode of his podcast, “The Town.”
Speaking about the incident, Belloni said, “I talked to someone backstage. The Taylor camp knew immediately this is a misstep.” Continuing, he added that the Taylor team was “scrambling” to pave over the incident with a heavy dose of damage control, saying, “They were scrambling to get a photo of Taylor with Celine Dion, which they promptly put out, and that was damage control for the ‘Celine Moment.’”
Watch the incident here to decide for yourself if she was rude:
Belloni added that Swift made a major mistake in using her first Grammys speech to announce her new album, saying that it was “tacky” for her to use the awards show to promote it. He said that her speech “was a rare misstep, announcing the album during her speech. You could feel it in the room. No one was really clapping, except that section of Swifties who were going nuts.”
Explaining why the incident was so awkward and a big misstep, Belloni said, “(The camera) panned to the stars, and nobody was really into it. It just felt like, this is the last person who needs that stage for promotion — at least in the room. She’s the biggest music star on the planet right now. Like, give it a rest.”
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