Man who smashed $4,000 Taylor Swift guitar with hammer shares why he did it

A Texas man who went viral after he bought a Taylor Swift-themed guitar at auction for US$4,000, only to destroy it with a hammer seconds later, says he pulled off the stunt for a laugh and claims there’s no ill will intended.

Gary Estes, 67, garnered the ire of many Swifties over the weekend when video was posted to social media that showed him smashing through a Swift-branded guitar at a charity event.

He’d won the coveted instrument, emblazoned with images of the pop superstar, at the Ellis County Wild Game Dinner in Waxahachie, Texas. Seconds after approaching the stage to retrieve the item, he smashed it with a hammer 17 times.

Man pays $3200.00 dollars for autographed Taylor Swift Guitar then smashes it to pieces with a hammer. #taylorswift

♬ original sound – jdcobb58

“Guess we don’t need the wall hanger,” the auctioneer joked before saying, “Hey, Gary, now take that and hang up that busted thing.”

The video, uploaded to TikTok by event attendee JD Cobb, immediately went viral. Many saw it as an act of debasement related to Swift’s recent endorsement of Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.

“We’re in an area (Ellis County) where Trump is pretty prevalent,” Cobb told USA Today, confirming he also thought it was meant as a slight against Swift. “Especially among country type folk, not a lot of people here like Taylor Swift.”

But Estes insists it was just a joke and “nothing mean about it.”

“There was nothing malicious or anything about it,” he told NBC News on Tuesday. “It was just a joke at an auction that we had to raise money for kids, right? And that’s all it was. There was nothing mean about it, nothing bad about it. It was just a joke that they were making up on the stage, and we just followed through with a