Hank Azaria has a bone to pick with Taylor Swift — but it is all in good fun. The 62-year-old Simpsons voice actor appeared on The Dan Le Batard Show on June 11, 2026, to vent about his seat situation at Game 4 of the NBA Finals. While Swift sat courtside cheering on the New York Knicks, Azaria found himself “way up in what they call the Cisco Suites, which are, like, the ceiling.”
“I’ll tell you the one that bothered me was Taylor Swift. Come on,” Azaria said on the show. “I know she’s the hugest thing in the world, but we had to sit with her all through the NFL and now she’s at the Garden. Come on.”
The Seat Swap That Went Wrong
Azaria has been attending Knicks games at Madison Square Garden since the 1970s. He usually gets complimentary tickets, but for the NBA Finals, nothing is guaranteed. “You don’t know from the Garden if you’re going to get in until that day,” he explained. “If you’re Ben Stiller or Tracy Morgan, you know. I think Spike [Lee] actually pays for his tickets.”
For Game 3, Azaria “didn’t make the cut.” So he bought “outrageously expensive” tickets for Game 4 on June 10, planning to sell them if the Garden came through with comps. When he found out he had free tickets waiting, he tried to list his purchased seats on StubHub. But the price had dropped — possibly because the Knicks lost Game 3. So he made a decision he would soon regret.
“I got two friends who are such big Knicks fans… let me just have them come and watch the game and they’ll sit in the other seats,” Azaria recalled. “It’s a very extravagant gift, but what the heck, right?”
Once inside the Garden, Azaria realized his comped seats were not what he expected. “I know I’m not courtside, but I think they’ve gotten me good seats,” he said. “But we’re way up in what they call the Cisco Suites, which are like the ceiling.”
An A-List Crowd Stuck in the Rafters
Azaria was not alone in the nosebleeds. He rattled off a list of famous faces who also could not get courtside access for the historic game.
“In this suite is me, Questlove, Rainn Wilson, Ed Burns and Christy Turlington, Jeremy Strong. Aaron Judge is right there,” Azaria said. “There’s so many folks that want in that they’ve stuck us all up in the rafters.”
Meanwhile, Swift sat in the front row with the HAIM sisters — Alana, Este, and Danielle — all wearing matching pun shirts reading “Stevie Knicks,” “Knickole Kidman,” and “Knickelback.” Swift also sat near Mariska Hargitay, Spike Lee, Timothée Chalamet, Kylie Jenner, and Adam Sandler.
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‘I’m Just Tired of the Whole Taylor Sports’
Azaria made sure to clarify that he does not question why Swift got the seats. “Not that I question why she’d get the seat,” he said. “I’m just tired of the whole Taylor Swift…” before getting cut off.
He added later: “I’m just tired of the whole Taylor sports [stuff].”
Despite his grumbling, Azaria acknowledged he was lucky to be in the building at all. “I was just happy to be in there,” he said, especially after witnessing the Knicks complete the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history — erasing a 29-point deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs 107-106.
“When they were making this strange, gradual, limpy comeback all through the second half of the game, I was too nervous to commit to the reality that it might be happening to yell out loud about it,” Azaria recalled. “I just stood there with my hands on my head with my mouth agape not wanting to breathe too much.”
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