He might be the greatest tight end in football history. And she’s the billion-dollar superstar of pop music. After Travis Kelce knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said “Marry me, Taylor Swift,” a flashbulb memory was created for football fans, music lovers and, well, almost everybody else, too. With the announcement of their engagement on Tuesday, an epic – and epically scrutinised – romance took the next step. Here’s how we got there.
The failed bracelet plan
It all began in July 2023, when Kelce attended a Swift concert in Kansas City, Missouri, and adopted her fans’ tradition of making and exchanging friendship bracelets with messages on them. Only Kelce planned to give his bracelet directly to Swift. And rather than an upbeat message or song title, his bracelet included his phone number.
But he was unable to meet Swift. (It was later revealed that he had thought he could breeze right past the singer’s stringent security for a meeting because he knew someone working the stadium elevator.) The missed connection made him “a little butthurt”, he said. Still, it amounted to a declaration of interest when Kelce talked about it on New Heights, the podcast he hosts with his brother, Jason.
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The world reacts. It’s not subtle
There has always been a lot of interest in Swift’s love life. Somehow it got even more intense as people began to whisper and then shout about meetings between Swift and Kelce.
A TikTok trend had Swifties approaching their football-loving friends or significant others and guilelessly saying variations of: “Taylor Swift is really going to put this Travis Kelce guy on the map,” often to irate, sputtering responses about how Kelce was already extremely famous.
Still, few would argue the fact that even a future Hall of Famer’s star shines a little brighter in the rays of Taylor Swift.
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Visits to the workplace
As the 2023 football season started, Swift took an interest in the sport, notably in games played by the Kansas City Chiefs, Kelce’s team. In September, she turned up at the team’s home stadium, Arrowhead, sitting in a box with Kelce’s mother, Donna. (His mom, oh my gosh!)
Swift continued going to games, and if that wasn’t enough to get fans as excited by the doings in the stands as those on the field, she also brought along celebrity friends including Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.
More in Swift’s milieu than Kelce’s, the couple appeared on Saturday Night Live in October and – gasp – they were holding hands afterward. A fairly chaste kiss on the cheek in a photo posted on Instagram stoked speculation even more.
The football game visits continued through the Super Bowl in 2024, which Kansas City duly won. (Kelce had nine catches for 93 yards, both game highs.)
There were people who conjured up bizarre conspiracy theories: Were Kansas City’s victories rigged by the league? Was it all a scam to boost the presidential campaign of Joe Biden? (Swift had endorsed Democrats in the past.) Was she a Defense Department asset somehow? Well, no, no and no, but that didn’t stop the buzz in some online and TV news circles.
There were also grousers who believed that shots of Swift cheering in the stands were taking up valuable TV time that should have been devoted to football. Luckily, a New York Times study found that Swift was shown for a total of less than a minute at most of the games.
Making it official
Step by step, it got more real. In magazine interviews in late 2023, the pair began officially, if somewhat discreetly, discussing their relationship.
At a show in Buenos Aires in November, Swift changed a lyric to say: “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me.” Even some of her dancers seemed surprised.
Swift never jumped on the gridiron to catch a pass (not that she couldn’t, we’d wager). But Kelce, in a top hat, carried Swift onstage at the Eras Tour in London in June 2024, drawing screams from the already hoarse fans in attendance.
Accepting an MTV award in September, Swift mentioned “my boyfriend, Travis”, and Talmudic readers of Swiftiana said it was her most prominent public acknowledgment of him.
A laid-back podcast
Swift appeared on the Kelce brothers’ podcast this month. The appearance broke records, as more than a million people watched it simultaneously as it aired on YouTube. It has been viewed more than 20 million times.
The ostensible purpose was to announce news of her upcoming album. But viewers also noticed how loose, funny and, well, real, Swift seemed. It seemed to be a rare look at Taylor Swift the person, away from the media handlers, the millions of fans and the billions of dollars. She talked about baking bread, for goodness’ sake.
The frenzied speculation reached a new peak. Was it finally happening?
Yes, it finally happened
Swift and Kelce posted photographs and announced their engagement on Instagram on Tuesday.
“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” Swift wrote.
By the afternoon, the post was at 18 million likes and climbing.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
