There was a time when Travis Kelce wasn’t interested in talking about his personal life, but no more.
He’s the cover star of WSJ Magazine’s new issue and he’s spilling tea about being Taylor Swift’s new man.
“Obviously I’ve never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them…. I’ve never dealt with it,” Kelce told the publication of Swift’s life in the spotlight. “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.”
Things appear to be going well. Kelce described his new girlfriend is “hilarious” and “a genius.”
They share similar world views, he said, including when it comes to family.
“Everybody knows I’m a family guy,” Kelce said. “Her team is her family. Her family does a lot of stuff in terms of the tour, the marketing, being around, so I think she has a lot of those values as well, which is right up my alley.”
It turns out Team Swift was instrumental in getting the two together after he publicly shared he was trying to get his phone number to her via friendship bracelet.
“There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: Yo! Did you know he was coming? I had somebody playing Cupid,” he recalled. “She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out.”
Count some of Swift’s family members among those who may have helped the romance get off the ground.
“She’ll probably hate me for saying this, but…when she came to Arrowhead, they gave her the big locker room as a dressing room, and her little cousins were taking pictures…in front of my locker,” Kelce said.
Folks around Kelce were more nervous about his first date with the super star singer than he was.
“Everybody around me telling me: Don’t [expletive] this up! And me sitting here saying: Yeah — got it,” he said.
According to Kelce, they had been talking a bit by the time they met up for dinner in New York City, so he anticipated that things would go smoothly.
The Kansas City Football player said he’s been cautious with what he had said to the media about their relationship.
“That was the biggest thing to me: make sure I don’t say anything that would push Taylor away,” he told WSJ magazine.
Someone else who was initially guarded was his mom, Donna Kelce, who worried that in trying to protect their privacy, she sounded underwhelmed about Swift in an interview with “Today.”
Her son assured her she did fine and now, she’s sharing more as well.
“I can tell you this,” she told the publication while beaming. “He’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time…. God bless him, he shot for the stars!”