On May 11, 2024, Harrison Butker, the starting kicker for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, gave the commencement speech at Benedictine College, a private Catholic liberal arts school in Kansas. His speech included many controversial statements, including when he congratulated the school’s women graduates and then said most are more excited about motherhood than a career.
Viral posts across multiple social media platforms, including X and TikTok, claim that in the days after the speech Butker followed up with comments “setting the record straight.”
The posts claim Butker said, “Everyone is taking what I said out of context. All I said is that we should go back to a better time, like the 50s and 60s. When men were men, and women had more babies than thoughts. When the only 'Me too' movement was one woman saying she was ready for her 4th child, and another woman agreeing.”
The quote appears in an image shared in each viral post.
THE QUESTION
Did Harrison Butker say the viral quote about going back to a time when “women had more babies than thoughts”?
THE SOURCES
- The Sports Memery, satire page that originated the quote
- RevEye, an image forensics tool to reverse image search
- Butker’s Instagram and X accounts
- VERIFY analysis of recent news reports
THE ANSWER
No, Harrison Butker did not say the viral quote about going back to a time when “women had more babies than thoughts.”
WHAT WE FOUND
Harrison Butker did not actually say the viral quote claiming “we should go back to a better time” when “women had more babies than thoughts.” The quote originated from a satirical sports page.
This May 15, 2024 Facebook post by “The Sports Memery” is the oldest version of the image featuring the quote VERIFY could find through a reverse image search or through searching the quote on search engines.
The page’s about section identifies itself as satire, and its cover image includes the tagline “the fakest news on the internets.”
VERIFY used RevEye, a tool for conducting a reverse image search with four search engines at once, to search for the image and could find no version older than the May 15 Facebook post. A Google search for part of the quote revealed no news stories reporting on the quote except to fact-check the image with the quote.
Butker himself has made no such statement on his Instagram or X accounts. VERIFY reached out to Butker’s talent agency for comment but has not yet heard back.
The viral posts resharing the quote include two watermarks indicating the image originated from The Sports Memery. At Butker’s chest, right above the text box, is “@TheSportsMemery.” At the top right of the image is a faint, red “SM” logo that is identical to the logo in The Sports Memery’s profile picture.
As of May 20, 2024, Butker has not publicly commented on his commencement speech since he gave it. According to various national news reports, the NFL distanced itself from Butker’s speech, the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, a founding institution and sponsor of Benedictine College, condemned it and Tavia Hunt, wife of Kansas City Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt, supported it in comments reacting to the speech.
During his speech, Butker said that while some of the graduating women may go on to lead successful careers, he would venture to guess that “the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” He also made a reference to Pride month by saying “the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it," and criticized Biden administration positions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and abortion.
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