Comedian Chelsea Handler attacked Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s faith in a social-media rant against the athlete following his controversial commencement address earlier this month.
The crux of Handler’s condemnation centered on Butker’s claim during his Benedictine College speech that the female graduates at the ceremony “are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”
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After joking during a TikTok that Butker spoke “more than I typically like for a male,” she went on to classify his graduation speech as a “misogynistic rant” and demeaned his Christian beliefs: “I’m guessing this Bible thumper thumped himself a little too hard with his Bible and gave himself CTE.”
“First of all, Harrison, you’re a kicker,” the celebrity said. “So you have one important part of your body and it’s not your [expletive] brain.”
Handler then pivoted her criticism toward the 28-year-old athlete’s wife, Isabelle, whom Butker said “would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” The comedian also used the fact that Butker’s mother, Elizabeth, is an accomplished career physicist to discredit his comments.
“Isabelle, please blink twice if you need us to call for help,” Handler said. “But the real kicker is that Harrison Butker’s mother is a renowned physicist who has a degree in chemistry and a master’s in medical physics.”
Butker’s mother, according to her LinkedIn profile, has worked in Emory University’s Department of Radiation Oncology since 1988 as a medical physicist.
She continued, “So who paid for all those youth athletic team fees and uniform fees and equipment fees when Harrison was a kid so we could grow up to have a career making millions of dollars for [expletive] kicking things? My guess is a working woman. Harrison, this is the first time I’ve heard about you and hopefully the last. And, after this, I’m gonna go ahead and do what your fellow teammate does and just pretend like you don’t exist.”
For his part, Butker spoke out during an event Friday in Nashville, Tennessee, about his controversial commencement address — and didn’t back down.
The famed football star spoke in the original commencement address about the roles of men and women in society, President Joe Biden, homosexuality, abortion access, and more. Much of the venom coming his way over the past two weeks, he said in his Friday response, is a result of his Catholic convictions.
“If it wasn’t clear that the timeless Catholic values are hated by many, it is now,” Butker said. “Over the past few days, my beliefs — or what people think I believe — have been the focus of countless discussions around the globe.”
“At the outset,” he added, “many people expressed a shocking level of hate. But, as the days went on, even those who disagreed with my viewpoints shared their support for my freedom of religion.”
You can read more about his comments here.
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