Chiefs' Harrison Butker Breaks Silence on Controversial Commencement Speech

A noisy offseason for Harrison Butker just grew a little louder.

After creating a controversy with his ultra-conservative commencement speech in the spring to this week signing a contract to make him the highest-paid kicker in the NFL, Butker has remained in the headlines. Until now, it's all happened without talking to the media.

But on Wednesday, the Kansas City Chiefs ' star finally broke his silence, amplifying a message that ruffled many feathers and prompted a statement from the NFL.

"My whole career, I've talked about how I'm a husband and I'm a father before it comes to me as a kicker," Butker said at training camp. "It's something I've always preached. But then when I use that to talk about women and I say that they should embrace and love being wives and being mothers over their career, I think then it gets construed that I'm trying to put women down. Which I'm not at all. I love women. I love my wife."

For his speech — which took aim at topics ranging from President Joe Biden to abortion rights — Butker received both major criticism from celebrities and comedians and support from conservatives. His No. 7 jersey was briefly the league's best-seller.

To his credit, Butker isn't apologizing or backing down.

Related: Chiefs Owner Clark Hunt Among NFL’s 10 Richest

"I'm going to stand behind what it is I'm saying,'' Butker said. "I kind of look at the offseason as a little bit of a maybe five-month period where I can just represent me as Harrison Butker as a faithful Catholic. And then obviously when it gets to the season, I try to focus as much as I can on football and not being a distraction for the Chiefs."