Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste Deletes Twitter Account Amid Backlash For Taylor Swift Comments
Grizzly Bear frontman Ed Droste has been feuding with Taylor Swift fans on Twitter for a while now. The whole thing started in earnest last month when he tweeted a photo of an article comparing Swift to Mean Girls’ Regina George with the caption “Obsessed that people are catching on.” Droste called her “self serving” and “calculating,” explaining that he has “first hand experience” of being treated rudely by her and saying that “she’s been given a free pass for too long.” Swifties leapt to the pop star’s defense, and although Droste admitted that “She frightens me genuinely,” he didn’t back down.
Taylor Swift is currently on a quest to share a stage with every famous person in America, touring the country in support of 1989 and welcoming a different guest to the stage at each show, and Droste has been popping up periodically to express his distaste with what he sees as the fakeness of the whole thing. At her show in Los Angeles last night, Taylor brought out indie-world heroes Beck and St. Vincent to perform Beck’s recent single “Dreams.” Meanwhile, elsewhere in L.A., Droste was spending his evening guesting on Haunting Renditions With Eliot Glazer — where they covered Brandy & Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine” — but he took some time off to to tweet this:
Hordes of Swift fans again attacked Droste, and things began to escalate.
Amid all this controversy, HAIM — noted besties with Taylor and also very tight with Droste — reportedly unfollowed him on Twitter, with Alana Haim tweeting this:
Done with friends who aren't ride or die…Snip, snip, bye, bye! 👋?? #notsorryatall
— Alana HAIM (@babyhaim) August 26, 2015
That seems to have been the last straw for Droste. Fed up all the backlash, he got in a few parting shots and shout-outs and then deleted his Twitter account.
Luckily, Droste’s social media presence isn’t gone completely — he’s somewhat of an Instagram celebrity, where he documents his experiences traveling the world for Vogue, so you can still follow him here. He also has a Snapchat (bamboosensation).