A decade and a half ago it was Taylor Swift singing “You Belong With Me,” but in 2023, it was Travis Kelce who took up the chorus to win her heart.
The pop superstar made a rare podcast appearance on her boyfriend Kelce’s New Heights show, which he hosts with his brother Jason Kelce, to discuss all things Eras Tour, her new album, and her “wild, romantic” beginnings with Travis.
“This podcast has done a lot for me. I owe a lot to this podcast. This podcast got me a boyfriend, ever since Travis decided to use it as his personal dating app about two years ago,” Swift joked on Wednesday’s episode. She was referring to their storied first interaction, when the NFL star tried and failed to give her a friendship bracelet (a Swiftie concert tradition) with his number on it during the Kansas City, Mo., pitstop of her globe-trotting Eras Tour in 2023.
Kelce would make his infatuation with Swift known through his podcast and their mutual connections in the weeks after, and in a matter of months, they were dating.
“I was like, ‘If this guy isn’t crazy, which is a big if, this is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager,'” Swift marveled.
New Heights Show/Taylor Swift/Instagram
“It was such a wild, romantic gesture to just be like, ‘I want to date you,'” she explained. “At first, when I looked at it, I was like, this dude is…. This dude didn’t get a meet and greet, and he’s making it everyone’s problem. That’s what I thought at first.”
In his own defense, Kelce humorously supplied, “You come to Arrowhead, I get to meet you. That’s the perk of playing for the Chiefs.” Arrowhead Stadium, where Swift performed hits from her voluminous catalog during her two-night stint in Kansas City, is also the primary venue for Kelce’s football team, the Kansas City Chiefs.
“He didn’t even reach out to our management. When this podcast came out, I was like, ‘Did he ever reach out to be in the tents? Did we know he was in the building?” Swift joked. “He thought that because he knows the elevator lady that he could talk to her about just getting down to my dressing room.”
While Swift and Kelce never officially announced their relationship, romance rumors sparked shortly after the famed tight end declared his adoration for the “Anti-Hero” singer in the summer of 2023. On Sept. 21, Jason joked that those rumors were “100 percent true,” and three days later Swift was spotted cheering Travis on alongside his mother in the family box at a Chiefs game.
Once they went on that first date, Swift recounted accidentally betraying how little she knew about Travis’ passion and profession, football.
“I literally, I legitimately asked him what it was like when the Chiefs played the Eagles in the Super Bowl, and he looked across the field, across the line of scrimmage, and saw his brother standing on the other [side] five feet in front of him on the field,” she said on New Heights.
“He was like — and he didn’t even look at me, [and] I now know what an insane question that was — ‘Actually, I’m on the offense and my brother’s on the offense, and I’m only on the field at the same time as the defense,'” she said.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Kevin Mazur/Getty
Kelce praised Swift for “diving into the football world” as “wholeheartedly” as he did with the kind of glittery pop she’s perfected the art of producing.
“Oh my God. I fell in love with it. I became obsessed with it,” she admitted.
Swifties know that their idol does absolutely everything for a reason, especially appearing on a podcast, even if it is hosted by her beloved beau. Lo and behold, Swift’s true purpose for appearing on New Heights was eventually revealed: the announcement of her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl.
“I love it that much. [I’m] confident. So proud of it. And it just comes from, like, the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life,” Swift teased.
You can watch the rest of Swift’s conversation with the Kelce brothers on New Heights above.
