A harmless comment from Monica McNutt on a livestream of the MSG Networks’ radio call of Game 4 of the NBA Finals became a trending story online after fans of Taylor Swift piled on the analyst for questioning Swift’s New York Knicks fandom.
McNutt playfully suggested Swift should “get out of here,” only for Swift to become one of the focuses of ESPN and ABC’s broadcast of New York’s historic comeback win. By Thursday morning, McNutt told TMZ that she stood corrected on Swift’s NBA loyalties, having seen coverage of the musician’s relationship with former Knicks big man Amar’e Stoudemire dating back more than a decade.
However, while the pop star is due to get married in the city this summer and has written extensively about the city in her music, Swift grew up in suburban Philadelphia before moving to Nashville. And in comments on The Breakfast Club on Friday, McNutt further questioned Swift’s true dedication to the team — and the nature of the response from her fans and the media covering the situation.
“The internet don’t care about context, but context: One, hot mic, first of all. Second, I literally, y’all, just did a piece on Knicks celebrity row … I know the celebrities that are there consistently,” McNutt explained. “I may have misspoke on her loyalties, but I have not seen her all season or last season. We saw her in Cleveland with her fiancé (Travis Kelce). When I dated a Cowboys fan, and I was a Commanders fan, we wore our stuff … and she didn’t have on any Knicks gear in Cleveland.”
🚨 After @mcnuttmonica was caught on a hot mic questioning whether Taylor Swift was really a Knicks fan during Game 4, Monica stopped by to clear the air. 👀🏀
“I have not seen her all season.” — Monica McNutt pic.twitter.com/Q5ETPbuIcZ— The Breakfast Club (@breakfastclubam) June 12, 2026
McNutt added that there were no hard feelings toward Swift in particular, noting she was all for the “girl power” on display as Swift celebrated with the Haim sisters and Law & Order star Mariska Hargitay.
“Orange and blue is uniting everybody,” McNutt said.
But what seemed to frustrate McNutt more than any actual tension with Swift was the outsized response to an innocuous comment she made to her broadcast partner. According to McNutt, when MSG Networks PR received word of her joke about Swift, it was described as a “ruthless comment.”
McNutt believes that fans and media have tried to make the situation about race when it is not.
“Being super peace of mind, I’m just making an observation, quickly it’s, ‘Oh you’re racist, da-da-da,’” she said. “If I was in a different body, it would be nothing.”
Breakfast Club host Charlamagne Tha God agreed, saying he took McNutt’s comments as a basketball analyst and fan making an “observation,” while cohost Lauren LoRosa argued that online headlines are suggesting a racial component.
Certainly, when women and Black women in particular cover men’s sports, they face outsized scrutiny and negativity. In this case, McNutt also ran afoul of the Swifties, one of the most vocal and active fan communities on the internet. While McNutt clearly was not making an actual plea for Swift to be removed from Madison Square Garden, the reaction online has turned the conversation into one far more intense and confrontational than it ever needed to be.
