​​Taylor Swift Calls Travis Kelce ‘Metal as Hell,’ Confirms Chiefs Game Was Not Their First Date 

Taylor Swift says she and Travis Kelce started hanging out last summer after he called her out on an episode of his podcast.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have been dating longer than you think. The “Anti-Hero” singer opened up about her relationship with the NFL star in a new interview. She confirmed the two were already an item before her headline-making appearance at a Kansas City Chiefs game in September.

Taylor Swift says Travis Kelce ‘very adorably put me on blast’
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce | Gotham/GC Images

Swift got candid about the timeline of her relationship with Kelce in an interview for Time’s 2023 Person of the Year. The pop star explained that it all began when the Chiefs’ tight end “very adorably put me on blast on his podcast.”

Kelce talked about going to see Swift in concert on her Eras tour in the July 26 episode of his New Heights podcast (via YouTube). He told his brother and co-host Jason Kelce that he was “butthurt” he didn’t get to give Swift a friendship bracelet “with my number on it.”

“I thought [that] was metal as hell … We started hanging out right after that,” Swift told Time.

The ‘Karma’ singer says she and Kelce would have been ‘psychotic’ to have a public first date

Swift and Kelce went public with their romance in September when she attended a Chiefs game with his mom, Donna Kelce. By that time, the pair’s relationship was already fairly serious.

“So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other,” Swift said. “By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple.”

“I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game?” she added. “We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.”

Swift says she’s been ‘missing out’ on football her whole life

Taylor Swift attends a game between the New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs at MetLife Stadium on Oct. 1, 2023 | Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

For Swift, attending Kelce’s games is all about supporting her beau, not making headlines or increasing the audience for NFL games. (When she attended her second NFL game on Oct. 1, female viewership was up by more than 35%, Variety reported.)

“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care … The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other,” she said.

As for critics who say her presence at Chiefs games is a distraction? Swift doesn’t really care.

“I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in…There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once…I’m just there to support Travis,” she said.

“I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads,” she went on to say. “Football is awesome, it turns out … I’ve been missing out my whole life.”