In a poorly thought-out move earlier this week, country singer Zach Bryan posted to X the statement, “Eagles > Chiefs, Kanye > Taylor, who’s with me.”

Predictably, his comment received immediate backlash from Swifties (football fans have yet to be as vocal on the subject). In response, Bryan de-activated his X account altogether.

On Thursday morning, Bryan shared the message on his Instagram story, “For the record, guys, I wasn’t coming for Taylor the other night. I was drunkenly comparing two records, and it came out wrong. I know there’s a lot of stuff that clouds around Ye, and I was speaking purely musically. I love Taylor’s music and pray you guys know I’m human and tweet stupid things often. Hope one day I can explain this to her. Twitter gets me in trouble too much, and I’d say it’s best that I stay off it. I’m sorry to any Taylor fans I pissed off or let down. Love you guys, and I’m trying my best!”

He accompanied the statement with Swift’s song “Fortnight,” which features Post Malone.

Although he could have stopped there, and everyone would have understood his intentions, Bryan felt the need to follow up on the statement with a second page of the story, accompanied by Swift’s song “The Albatross.” 

He wrote, “I’ve been going through a hard time in my own life and I think I was projecting a little. To be completely honest, it just came off as rude and desensitized to Taylor.”

He continued, “I respect her so much as a musician that the last thing I want is people thinking I don’t appreciate and love what she has done for music. Okay, that’s the last of it! Love you guys and hope you guys understand. Don’t drink and tweet. Don’t drink and tweet!!”

Interestingly, that was not the last of it, as Bryan proceeded to add another page for his fans to read.

Bryan wrote, “Not saving face here, but Taylor has been a force of nature for as long as we’ve all been growing up, and I admire that. I’m gonna go listen to this record now, I never want people to think I have a hint of malice or meanness towards anyone, ever, that’s why I’m saying all this. Everyone have the best day of all time, I love ya.”

Extending his commentary, Bryan once again emphasized his poor mental state was affecting him in ways no one could have predicted. “This year has been an awful lot on me in personal ways that no one knows, and I’ve been trying to cope and balance too many things at once. So I’m going to take a breather from tweeting stupid stuff, finish my tour, and ground myself somehow in the midst of all this. I feel very, very blessed each day.”

He finished, “Not taking it for granted and holding onto it has been so important to me. Okay, I needed to get this off my chest. You all are the best, and I’ll see you at Bourbon and Beyond.”

Bryan was arrested in Oklahoma last year on a charge of obstructing an investigation. He acknowledged afterward that he “was an idiot” and an “actual child” throughout the incident and asserted, “I’ll take the fall for it… I’m a grown man, and I shouldn’t have behaved like that.”

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