Selena Gomez Addresses Taylor Swift Comment Speculation: "I do have other friends"

No, Selena Gomez wasn’t being shady when she dropped an “lol” in the comments of a post with photos of Taylor Swift at the NBA finals.

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The singer-actress cleared the air in a message posted to Instagram Stories on Friday (June 12) after she apparently “woke up and was sent so many txts” about people misinterpreting the situation. “i would never insult my friends nor was it an insult,” Gomez wrote over a quick snap of her view from her bed. “The comment was a reaction to the first slide on the page.”

“Second I bet my friends on the game,” she continued, referring to a screenshot of text messages with other pals she’d posted earlier that some people seemingly conflated with her comment on a post about Swift. “I lost but was poking fun at my opponents, my friends. Believe it or not I do have other friends in my life. But quickly forget that most assume otherwise.”

As a reminder to followers, the Rare Beauty founder added, “also .. It’s a basketball game.”

It all started with MTV sharing two Instagram snaps of Swift at the New York Knicks vs. San Antonio Spurs game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday (June 10). The first shows the 14-time Grammy winner hugging Mariska Hargitay — who looks exhausted after a long, nail-biting few hours of cheering on the NYC team — while the second features Swift jumping excitedly alongside Este Haim.

In the comments, Gomez had simply written “lol,” which some people online had interpreted as sarcasm. But if anyone knows that the Only Murders in the Building star meant it in a good-humored way, it’s Swift — not just because the two women have been best friends for roughly two decades, but also because the Eras headliner was loud and proud about going all out to cheer on the Knicks at game four. Showing up in a punny “Stevie Knicks” shirt, Swift confidently joined in on the raucous post-win celebrations at MSG on Wednesday to the point where she was hoarse the next day at the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

“The quality of my speaking voice is — it’s the product of two things that I’m not sorry for,” Swift said from the podium while accepting her historic induction into the organization. “I was lucky enough to go to a Knicks game last night, screamed for 100% of it, and then I got home, and I was like, ‘Gotta stop screaming, you’re screaming too much, you’re screaming instead of talking, you’re too excited,’ and I was like, ‘OK, I’m not gonna scream tonight.’ And then I got to witness the amazing performances that I saw tonight, and then I just kept screaming. I just never stopped screaming, and so this is what you get. And again, I make no apologies for that.”

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/selena-gomez-denies-taylor-swift-knicks-comment-insult-1236271546/)._