Your support helps us to tell the story
Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.
Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.
Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.
Louise Thomas
Editor
A man in Texas paid $4,000 for what was described as an “autographed” Taylor Swift guitar, only to immediately smash it to pieces with a hammer.
Footage of the incident at the Ellis County Wild Game Dinner in Waxahachie, Texas has since gone viral.
The event was a fundraiser to support agricultural education for local youth, and the guitar was one of many items that were auctioned off along with tickets to see George Strait and Chris Stapleton, an African safari, a dove hunt and a trip to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
In a statement to The Independent, one of the organizers said the Swift guitar was “a real autographed guitar and it sold for $4,000.” The man who smashed the guitar has since spoken out.
In the video, the man can be seen approaching the stage where a member of auction staff is waiting with the instrument, which is covered in images of Swift from her record-breaking Eras Tour, and a hammer.
The man then takes hold of both and smashes the face of the guitar with the hammer to the sound of loud cheering from the audience.
As the man returns to his seat with the broken instrument in hand, the auctioneer laughs, passes him a box and says: “Now take that and hang up that busted thing.”
One event attendee, Rob Bartley, told The Independent: “A Taylor Swift guitar had sold at another event unrelated to this earlier in the year, so it wasn’t an unheard of type of item to auction.
“That said... when the man announced his intention to smash it the camera phones came out.”
Bartley added: “It was unexpected, but not surprising. This part of Texas leans heavily conservative and the Biden/Harris administration isn’t held in high regard.
“A lot of the working class people that live around me feel that the administration gone from not working for us to working against us.”
Swift has provoked the ire of Donald Trump supporters in recent weeks after endorsing his rival Kamala Harris for president.
In the days following Swift’s announcement, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to write: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
Swift’s endorsement drove more than 400,000 visitors to the vote.gov website in under 24 hours.
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post soon after Harris and Trump met in a televised debate. “If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most.”
Sharing a photo of herself holding her cat Benjamin Button from last year’s Time magazine shoot – when the publication named her its person of the year – she wrote: “Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight.
“As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.”
The cat seemed to be a reference to Trump’s running mate JD Vance who told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a 2021 interview that the country was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
Swift also mentioned AI-generated images, previously shared by Trump on Truth Social, falsely suggesting she was endorsing him for president, and called out the “dangers of spreading misinformation.”
She wrote: “Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation.
“It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth”.
She added: “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.”
