‘PLACE OF LOVE’

Chiefs’ Harrison Butker Doubles Down on Controversial Speech at Training Camp

The Kansas City player became the highest-paid kicker in the NFL earlier this week.

Nearly three months after telling women to focus on being homemakers during a May commencement speech that drew widespread rebuke, Harrison Butker is digging his heels in on his controversial remarks. The 29-year-old was criticized for telling students at Benedictine College that men should be “unapologetic” in their masculinity and that women in the workforce “have had the most diabolical lies told” to them. “I stand behind what I said,” he told a gaggle of reporters at a training camp on Wednesday. “I really believe if people knew me as a person, and understood that it was coming from a place of love—and not a place of trying to attract or put people down—and that I only want the best for people, that’s what I was trying to say there. I think the people that were in that gymnasium all understood what I was saying.” He added that, “seven years in the league, having this platform, I’ve just decided there’s things that I believe wholeheartedly that I think will make this world a better place.” Butker became the highest-paid kicker in the NFL earlier this week following a contract extension with the Kansas City Chiefs.