The Swift-Kelce romance isn’t fake – please forgive me
There was a moment after the AFC championship game when my world flipped on its head. That moment made me believe in love again. It was when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce kissed.
The kiss looked ... real. The way a couple who know they have a future together kiss. It wasn’t PR or something phony. It wasn’t cooked in a lab by their agents. They both, in that moment, seemed genuinely happy. I can’t believe I’m analyzing a kiss like I’m a teen back in the day reading Tiger Beat with Justin Bieber on the cover but here we are. They looked like a totally, wholly, magnificently legit couple.
They looked like they were wait ... wait ... hold on ... in love?
Some of you Swifties will say: Welcome to the party, idiot. Where have you been?
Do you know where I’ve been? Have you seen this cynical, cruel world we live in, where people think Swift is a Pentagon psyop and a dude who has been indicted 812 times is still a viable presidential candidate? That’s where I’ve been. Cynicism City. On the other side of the moon where it’s very dark and no one lives.
That cynicism led to me writing a column in October, as their reported relationship became more public, with the headline: “The Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance is fake. You know it is. So what? Let’s enjoy it.”
“You know it. Deep inside your soul. Where you tell yourself the truth,” I wrote then. “In fact, everyone knows it. Your friends. Your family. Your kids. The country. The president. Outer space. We. All. Know. It. We know the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce romance is fake. Don’t hate me for telling the truth that you already intuitively feel. You have told yourself this inevitable truth over and over as this story has washed over the nation. Your significant other even asked you recently: ‘Do you think it’s real?’ And you replied: ‘Of course it is.’ You knew this was a lie and it landed you in therapy but you want to believe.”
Yeah, that was wrong. In fairness, some of it was tongue in cheek, but there was definitely an element of seriousness to it. We’ve all been fooled by sham celebrity romances and this, partly at least, felt like one. What’s clear is that as time went on, and they were seen publicly more and more, it looked less and less fake. There was one signal that I ignored that may have been the biggest tell early on. It was when Kelce’s brother, Jason, said this during a radio interview when asked about the budding relationship:
“It’s hard to answer because I don’t know what’s happening in Travis’ love life, and I try to keep his business his business and stay out of that world. But having said that, man, I think they’re doing great, and I think it’s all 100% true, and I hope that this thing goes the mile.”
Jason later in the interview tried to say he was joking, but of course we know he wasn’t.
Another massive clue that the relationship was real came on the Kelce brothers’ “New Heights” podcast after Swift attended her first Kansas City Chiefs game in September.
“Shout-out to Taylor for pulling up,” Travis said. “That was pretty (gutsy). I just thought it was awesome how everybody in the suite had nothing but great things to say about her, the friends and family. She looked amazing, everybody was talking about her in great light, and on top of that, the day went perfect for Chiefs fans, of course. We script it all, ladies and gentlemen. It was impressive.”
“To see the slow-motion chest bumps, to see the high-fives with mom,” he added, “to see the (Kansas City fans) all excited she was there, that was absolutely hysterical, and it was definitely a game that I’ll remember, that’s for ... sure.”
She started attending more games. She hung with Kelce’s mom. She attended more games. She hung with mom more. She met dad. Kelce went to the Eras Tour in Argentina. Then came another pivotal moment when Kelce seemed to realize just how galactic Swift is.
“Obviously, I’ve never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them. … I’ve never dealt with it,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m not running away from any of it. … The scrutiny she gets, how much she has a magnifying glass on her, every single day, paparazzi outside her house, outside every restaurant she goes to, after every flight she gets off, and she’s just living, enjoying life. When she acts like that, I better not be the one acting all strange.”
We might be witnessing something that on the surface seems phony but is actually quite earnest. These are two people who care for each other; one a superstar entertainer, the other a future Hall of Famer, and there’s nothing rigged or staged or shady about it. It’s just a cool story.
Kelce will be asked nonstop questions this week about Swift and he’ll handle them with humor and a smile as he has for months now. So, yes, I was wrong. This is real.
See you at the wedding.*