Taylor Swift has officially confirmed her relationship status with Travis Kelce after months of rumors and public outings. Swift opened up about the Kansas City Chiefs star in a new cover story for Time magazine, which named her Person of the Year for 2023.
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she said. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other.” Back in July, Kelce attended The Eras Tour in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium, his own team’s home stadium. Shortly after, he spoke of his admiration for Swift on his podcast, “New Heights,” and said he hoped to give her his phone number. Plenty of speculation followed about their relationship status, but nothing was confirmed until she attended a Chiefs game in September and openly cheered for Kelce. “By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple,” Swift confirmed. “I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.” The public nature of their relationship is a change of pace for Swift, who previously dated actor Joe Alwyn for six years before their split was confirmed in April. The two were famously mum about each other in interviews and rarely spotted out together.
“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” Swift told Time. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.” Indeed, Swift has since attended several Chiefs games, most recently on Sunday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, while Kelce flew to Buenos Aires in November to attend another concert. Kelce has been effusive with his praise for Swift, calling her “hilarious” and “a genius” in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. However, he also said he’s careful about discussing their relationship because he doesn’t want to overstep any of her boundaries. “That was the biggest thing to me: make sure I don’t say anything that would push Taylor away,” he said. “Obviously I’ve never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them… I’ve never dealt with it,” Kelce added. “But at the same time, I’m not running away from any of it.”
