Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are arguably the world’s most high-profile couple right now, consistently making headlines on the daily for simply holding hands or enjoying dinner together. But the exact circumstances of how their paths first crossed, other than the Chiefs star shooting his shot via a friendship bracelet, have largely remained a mystery — until now.
In a new Wall Street Journal profile on Kelce, the Kansas City tight end finally revealed what really happened after he was famously blocked from meeting the pop star at her July Eras Tour show in Kansas City. His attempts to slip her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it were also unsuccessful that night, something he later went viral for talking about on his New Heights podcast. Then, just two months later, the “Anti-Hero” singer attended her first Chiefs games at Arrowhead Stadium, and the rest was history.
But what happened in between? According to Kelce, someone in Swift’s camp brought his public crush on her to her attention. “There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: Yo! Did you know he was coming?” the football player told the publication. “I had somebody playing Cupid.”
Soon after, Kelce apparently received a text from Swift. “She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out,” he said.
The Ohio native didn’t say who exactly put him on Swift’s radar, although he did hint that a few of the 12-time Grammy winner’s family members may have helped his case.
“She’ll probably hate me for saying this, but … when she came to Arrowhead [for her concert], they gave her the big locker room as a dressing room,” he said. “And her little cousins were taking pictures … in front of my locker.”
The pair then started talking before eventually meeting for the first time in New York. “We had already kind of been talking, so I knew we could have a nice dinner and, like, a conversation, and what goes from there will go from there,” said Kelce. “Everybody around me [was] telling me: Don’t f–k this up! And me sitting here saying, Yeah — got it.”
And while Kelce has opened up about certain elements of his relationship with Swift on New Heights or in post-game press conferences, he’s done his best to keep things as private as possible so that the “Karma” musician never starts to feel uncomfortable. “That was the biggest thing to me,” he told the publication. “Make sure I don’t say anything that would push Taylor away.”
