HAVE NO FEARS, SWIFTIES: TAYLOR AND TRAVIS REMAIN AS REAL AS XAVIER WORTHY
The music superstar knew nothing about football but learned enough to support Kelce, who is entering his third year of dating Swift and senses what the rest of us realize: They are a long-term couple
The answer is Xavier Worthy. The question is why a football-worshipping, smitten Taylor Swift will not be dumping Travis Kelce this season, avoiding havoc that disrupts the Chiefs and — God forbid — swirls the Swifties into an unthinkable mental gutter. Not long ago, she informed her boyfriend that his team had drafted a wickedly fast receiver after the NFL combine, knowing Worthy had set a record with a 40-yard dash of 4.21 seconds.
This explains how Swift adores a game she once ignored like Katy Perry. “I fell in love with it. I became obsessed with it,” she said on a Wednesday night podcast with the Kelce brothers, Travis and Jason, which they claim broke the Internet. “I became a person who was running through the halls of my house screaming, ‘We drafted Xavier Worthy!' And my friends were like, ‘Who body-snatched you? What do you mean we drafted Xavier Worthy?’
“I was screeching. I couldn't believe it.”
The story is true. And it’s why a still-exuberant entertainment world will keep pondering Taylor and Travis as an eventual married couple, while Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid and Roger Goodell keep applauding. “I couldn't believe it either,” Kelce said. “I was like, ‘Is she right? I'm gonna have to look this up. Did she get the wrong information here?’ But yeah, we traded up.”
My only reason for following the podcast was to determine the seriousness of their relationship. Silly me. Why would Swift sit for two hours speaking about her 12th album, “The Life Of A Showgirl,” while the stinkers ran the “New Heights” program? The pair has been together since the summer of 2023. Yes, Swift was with English actor Joe Alwyn for more than six years, but she’s turning 37 in December. This is real, even if Buffalo’s Josh Allen is the league MVP and just married actress Hailee Steinfeld and hopes to change the planet with a Super Bowl victory. Remember, Swift was beyond clueless about football.
“I thought it was like Jared Goff is here and Josh Allen is here, and they blow a whistle and they go at each other,” she said. “I legitimately asked him what it was like when the Chiefs played the Eagles in the (2023) Super Bowl and he looked across the field, across the line of scrimmage, and saw his brother standing like five feet in front of him on the field. And he didn't even look at me.
“I now know what an insane question that was. I thought everyone was on the field at the same time. I didn't know what a first down was. I didn't know what the chains were. I didn't know what a tight end was.”
Now she knows what a tight end is. “We’re talking about Cover 2, Cover 4, Cover 0, man coverage,” Swift said. “I’m not ready to be an analyst right now, but give me 16 months.”
“I am forever thankful for you diving into the football world wholeheartedly," Kelce told his girlfriend.
She also isn’t afraid to bust his chops about their first meeting in July 2023. Kelce wanted to meet her during an “Eras Tour” stop in Kansas City and brought a friendship bracelet. “When I looked at, it was like ‘This dude didn't get a meet-and-greet and he's making it everyone's problem,’ ” Swift said. “That’s what I thought at first.”
“I was disappointed that she doesn't talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs she sings," Kelce said. "If you're up on Taylor concerts, there are friendship bracelets and I had received a bunch of them, but I wanted to give Taylor (a friendship bracelet) with my number on it.” It didn’t work. Nor has Swift seen Kelce’s original bracelet. Ha!
But she learned to love him. “It was such a wild romantic gesture to just be like, ‘I want to date you,’ ’’ she said, comparing him to John Cusack “standing outside with his boom box” in a John Hughes movie. Swift listened to the brothers on the air. “This podcast did a lot for me. I owe a lot to this podcast. This podcast got me a boyfriend,” she said.
Kelce changed his life. The party boy joined her tour, sometimes as a toy on stage. “I’m starting to phase out of wanting to be known as the party guy,” he said. “When you see me hanging out at the U.S. Open with Taylor, it may look like the two of us are partying. But I’m just enjoying the fun of being at this really cool event that I always wanted to go to with the person that I love.” He’ll always be the guy who won three Super Bowls and reached the Pro Bowl 10 times. He’ll always sing after big playoff victories: “You gotta fight for your right to party!”
But he’s turning 36 in October and soon will join Jason in retirement. Is this his final year? All Swift wants him to do is watch his remarks on social media. “Well, you remember Twitter: A squirrel ate a piece of bread,” she told him. “Didn't know they ate bread like that. Straight smashed it.”
No wonder Kelce wonders what the public thinks, jokingly. “No way this guy landed her. No chance,” he said.
Reid has known Swift since her days growing up in the Philadelphia area. He has dealt with Kelce since 2013. “Both of them like each other, and what a plus that is,” the Chiefs coach said. “They care about each other, and I think that’s the most important thing. The older you get, you want these guys to have somebody they can settle down with and that whole deal. And so I think it’s a neat deal for them — both of them.”
Did Reid hook them up, as he says?
“He says it, that's what happened," Swift said. “Whatever Andy Reid says, we're gonna stand by. He says it, that's what happened.”
“Cupid. Big Red," Kelce said.
A new season is beginning for both. He needs to overcome a bad Super Bowl loss. She has “The Life Of A Showgirl.”
“I’ve been fortunate enough to hear every single song, so I know they are all 12 bangers. It's a lot more upbeat,” Kelce said. “It's a lot more fun, pop excitement, and I think that's a complete 180 from the songs on Tortured Poets.”
In the music world, he knows what a first down is. He knows Jared Goff isn’t here, and Josh Allen isn’t there. He knows the deal.
Remind her.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.