It’s well documented that Taylor Swift fans are wildly passionate, and there’s a segment of Swifties who are ready to sharpen their quills if someone talks ill of their pop idol. As it turns out, Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson felt their wrath when he admitted to not being into her music, and he just got candid about it.
In an interview with GQ, Hutcherson talked about an incident that happened back in December while he was promoting his HBO series, I Love LA, with co-star Jordan Firstman. In Hutcherson’s words:
I got some heat because I did a photo shoot with Jordan, and Jordan asked me something about being a [Taylor Swift fan], and I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m definitely not a Swiftie.’
The video came from i-D in what looked like a casual exchange between Hutcherson and Firstman. You can check it out below:
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The I Love LA co-stars were playing a game of “Camera Roll Roulette” where they were asked to find a photo from the “club”. Sweetly, all Hutcherson could find was a photo of himself and his mom at a Taylor Swift concert. The actor said his mom “made” him go to the concert before Firstman asked if he was a Swiftie.
Josh said he “very much” is not one before saying “no shade, all respect” about the singer. Speaking about what happened after that quote got published, the Catching Fire actor said:
All of a sudden it garnered this, ‘Fuck him! He’s a monster! Destroy him! He’s short! He hates her because he’s short!’ [He is five feet five.] It’s just like, whoa! I think she’s great. Her music is not my kind of music. That is why I don’t want to be online.
The TikTok video earned a lot of engagement with over 800 comments, some of which were not very happy about Josh Hutcherson’s opinion. And based on the actor’s comments, fans went out of their way to make sure he felt the hate they wanted to hurl toward him as a result of his comment. It’s moments like this that remind Hutcherson that he prefers not to engage online. As he added:
I don’t need that energy. It’s counterintuitive to my job, because if people know you more, you can’t disappear into characters. They see you as, ‘Oh, that’s Josh.’ You know what I mean? So, if you’re a fucking meme, people know you for the meme.
Hutcherson is speaking here about not needing to be a TikTok star to be an actor. While TikTok has become more normalized to press tours as of late, the 33-year-old actor called it “counterintuitive” to his job.
Outside of his Taylor Swift comment going viral, Josh Hutcherson has long been known as one of the internet’s boyfriends and has definitely been a meme a few times before. For example, the photo of his Hunger Games character camouflaged as a rock or one photoshoot image being paired with Flo Rida’s “Whistle” also turned the internet’s eyes on him, too.
Hutcherson’s recent comments definitely speak to how intense not only Taylor Swift fans can be, but the internet as a whole – even to celebrities! Hey, sometimes they read the comments, too. Josh Hutcherson’s comments come as we anticipate his potential role in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping alongside Jennifer Lawrence, which is coming out on November 20, per the 2026 movie schedule.