The View’s Joy Behar Argues Harrison Butker Has ‘Big Mother Issues’ After Controversial Speech

In the aftermath of Harrison Butker’s eyebrow-raising commencement address, Joy Behar said the speech’s controversial content was actually quite easy to understand. 

On the Thursday, May 16 episode of The View, Behar, 81, said, “I don’t think that this is a political issue. I think he has mother issues.”

After Butker’s Saturday, May 11 speech at Benedictine College went viral — in which the Kansas City Chiefs kicker, 28, preached the value of being a “homemaker” while addressing the “diabolical lies” being told to modern women — his mother Elizabeth Butker’s professional history became a talking point. 

“His mother is a very accomplished physicist,” Behar explained. “I mean, a super duper accomplished woman. His mother. He probably was left alone because she was busy with her career.”

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Behar admitted she was acting as an “armchair therapist” on the matter, but it didn’t stop her from doubling down. 

“I think that’s the big issue with the guy,” Behar said. “He has big mother issues.”

Indeed, Butker’s mother has been a medical physicist at Emory University’s Department of Radiation Oncology in Atlanta since 1988. 

According to her LinkedIn, she graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1985 before securing her Master’s Degree in Medical Physics from the Georgia Institute of Physics in 1988.

She and husband Harrison Sr. welcomed Butker in July 1995. In addition, they are parents to older daughter Charlotte, who was born in 1993. 

Behar also brought up the fact that Butker called Taylor Swift “my teammate’s girlfriend” in his speech, referring to her relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. 

“Another hugely accomplished woman he has nothing but disdain for because of Mommy,” Behar contended. “Get a therapist.”

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The View moderator Whoopi Goldberg offered an alternative viewpoint during the panel’s discussion, advocating for Butker’s freedom of speech. 

“Listen, I like when people say what they need to say,” Goldberg, 68, said. “He’s at a Catholic college, he’s a staunch Catholic. These are his beliefs and he’s welcome to them. I don’t have to believe them. I don’t have to accept them. The ladies that were sitting in that audience do not have to accept them.”

In a statement following Butker’s speech, the NFL rebuked his messaging and indicated he gave the address in a "personal capacity.”

“His views are not those of the NFL as an organization,” the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer Jonathan Beane said. “The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”