NFL player Isaac Rochell has hit back at Harrison Butker’s controversial comments. (Luke Hales/Getty Images/TikTok/Isaac Rochelle)
Isaac Rochell has roasted fellow NFL star Harrison Butker for comments the Kansas City Chief’s kicker made about many women being most happy as homemakers.
Butker made headlines recently after comments he made in a commencement speech at Benedictine College.
In the speech, three-time Super Bowl champion Butker said students should have “true God-centred pride, not the deadly sin sort of Pride that has an entire month dedicated to it”. He also attacked the Democrats’ stance on abortion.
He went on tell the female graduates at the Catholic private college in Kansas: “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.
“[My wife] Isabelle’s dream of having a career might not have come true but if you ask her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud without hesitation and say: ‘Heck no’.”
Now, former Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns defensive end Rochell has taken to TikTok to share footage of his life as a stay-at-home-husband, making a jab at Butker in the process.
Rochell posted a video on 16 May which featured overlaid text stating: “In my homemaker era”.
He went on to say: “Me and [wife] Allie switched roles for the day,” to which she responds, “We don’t have roles, we’re equal partners.”
As his wife goes to her pilates class, Rochell, who also featured for the Los Angeles Chargers and the Indianapolis Colts, gets on with domestic chores, including feeding their five-month-old daughter and folding clothes.
Rochell added that he will be playing in the NFL next year but for the moment is a “straight-up, stay-at-home husband”.
His TikTok follows his wife posting a video of her own calling out Butker’s comments and stating that she’s not just a NFL wife.
“Along the way, I’ve made it a priority to make sure that I’m following my own dreams as well,” she said. “My life didn’t start when I married my husband, it started when I was born.
“Can you imagine sitting at your college graduation after working your a** off for four years and someone telling you that none of that really mattered? Cause the best thing is [to] be a homemaker?”
Amid the controversy around Butker’s speech, The View’s host Whoopi Goldberg has defended the football star.
Ghost star Goldberg addressed Butker’s sexist and anti-LGBTQ+ comments on the 16 May episode of The View, after a petition calling on the Chiefs to fire him garnered more than 175,000 signatures.
She highlighted her belief in respecting other people’s opinions, even if they are different from your own.
Butker has not yet commented publicly about the backlash and the NFL has said his speech conveyed only “his views” and “not those of the NFL as an organisation”.