Texas man says he smashed Taylor Swift-signed guitar he bid $4,000 on at auction as 'a joke'
There were more splinters than teardrops left on a Taylor Swift-autographed guitar after a Texas man smashed it apart as "a joke" — after he paid thousands for it at auction, the man said Tuesday.
There were more splinters than teardrops left on a Taylor Swift-autographed guitar after a Texas man smashed it apart as "a joke" — after he paid thousands for it at auction, the man said Tuesday.
Gary Estes, 67, says he paid $4,000 for the instrument at the Ellis County Wild Game Dinner in Waxahachie, an annual charity event that benefits agricultural-based education efforts for local youths.
When he went to get the guitar, Estes took a hammer to it in a moment captured on video that has gone viral — but he insisted he has no will against Swift.
"There was nothing malicious or anything about it," Estes 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 joke."
Auctioneer Craig Meier, a spokesperson for the event, said the guitar-smashing played well in the room."It was a funny, light-hearted thing. I know maybe it seemed to be malicious, but everybody was laughing," Meier said. "There were people there, at the time, who joked around that he's mad because he doesn't know how to play the guitar."
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