In today’s edition of sentences nobody expected to type in 2026: Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett appears to have accidentally started a minor internet war with Swifties.
During Metallica’s recent show in Budapest on Friday 13 June, fans noticed Hammett sporting a shirt featuring a blank-eyed image of Taylor Swift alongside the words: “Taylor Swift Is A CIA Psyop.”
And look… if you’ve spent literally any time online in the last five years, you’ll probably recognise the vibe immediately.
The shirt appears to be riffing on the increasingly unserious internet tendency to label wildly successful artists as government experiments, industry plants or elaborate psychological operations – a joke that’s floated around everyone from pop stars to indie bands and, more recently, became tangled up in some very online discourse surrounding US band Geese.
Unfortunately for Kirk, not everybody interpreted the bit the same way.
Swifties quickly clocked the shirt online and reactions ranged from eye rolls to full-blown “why are men incapable of simply ignoring Taylor Swift?” discourse.
Others accused Metallica of trying to stay relevant, with one user writing: “Please notice me, I’m still a rebel.”
Another labelled Metallica a “has-been band” – which, respectfully, is certainly one way to describe a band currently selling out stadiums around the world.
Metallica fans, meanwhile, responded with roughly the energy you’d expect.
“You idiots know Kirk did this as a joke right?” one dude wrote. “He also has Ouija board guitars and is super into sci-fi and what not. Chill.”
To be fair, Hammett has never exactly cultivated the image of a man operating on deadly serious cultural commentary. This is the same guitarist who’s spent decades openly obsessing over horror films, monsters, weird collectibles and generally not taking life too seriously.
So unless Kirk suddenly follows this up with a four-hour podcast appearance explaining the deep state implications of Folklore, this probably belongs firmly in the category of the internet being the internet.
Meanwhile, Metallica remain in the middle of a sold-out European tour before kicking off their huge Las Vegas Sphere residency later this year.
Taylor Swift, for her part, continues doing what Taylor Swift does: existing and somehow becoming discourse.
Further Reading
Metallica Announce 29-Hour ‘Reload’ Box Set (Yes, Really)
James Hetfield Just Proposed To His GF While Swimming With Giant Sharks
