As Taylor Swift searched the crowds on the pitch at the M&T Bank stadium in Baltimore after the Sunday night game between the Kansas Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens, it was like watching a scene from a schmaltzy film. As her eyes landed on her prize, superstar player Travis Kelce, her boyfriend of recent months, she broke into a wide smile. Holding onto the 6ft 5 ‘tight end’ (this is a proper NFL term, we are told) she celebrated the win for his team, the Chiefs, which would see them play at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on February 11th. ‘Brilliant, I love you,’ Swift murmured to Kelce, online lip readers declared, as the pair kissed as though millions of people weren’t watching their every move.


As well as a seminal win for Kelce, this was (perhaps more importantly for the less sports-oriented amongst us) a seminal moment in his relationship with Swift; by far their most public display of affection, after weeks of blurry photos of Swift cheering Kelce on from a VIP suite, or him waiting for her on the side of a stage. These latest photos of them kissing amongst a sea of people and cameras are a sure sign that their romance has fast become more serious than even the most dedicated Swifties might have previously realised (and sparked a sea of questions about just where Swift got that red lipstick which didn’t smudge a millimetre).


According to insiders, 34-year-old Swift, who started dating Kelce last summer after they were introduced by a mutual friend he described as ‘Cupid’ in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, is smitten in a way they have never seen before. In that interview Kelce stated that he had ‘never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them’ and the feeling, say Swift’s friends, is mutual.


This has a lot, one says, to do with how uninhibited Kelce is about fame in general. In Swift’s previous six year relationship with The Favourite actor Joe Alwyn, privacy was their modus operandi; we very rarely saw the couple together despite the fact they were said to live together in a £8 million Primrose Hill house – and this was intentional. In one interview Alwyn said, ‘We live in a culture that is so increasingly intrusive … the more you give — and frankly, even if you don’t give it — something will be taken.’ 


Dating the most famous woman in the world and privacy aren’t the happiest of bedfellows, however, and Alwyn and Swift parted ways in April last year. Enter Kelce, 34, who is apparently not only supremely unbothered by fame, but, in fact, is leaning into the viral nature of his own. He has a hit podcast which he hosts with his brother, former NFL star Jason Kelce, called New Heights, and a penchant for wearing the kind of outlandish outfits which have made him a street-style darling on TikTok.

He had his own, short-lived, The Bachelor-style dating reality television series called Catching Kelce, which ran for a single season in 2016 on the E! Network, and has released a Christmas single with his brother (which went to number one in the US in December). It’s clear, then, that Kelce doesn’t take himself too seriously, something that those close to Swift have identified as a winning factor in their relationship. ‘She has found someone who is not intimidated by her fame, but is also more than comfortable shouting about their love for each other from the rooftops,’ says Grazia’s source. ‘Travis is an extremely positive, uncomplicated guy who’s unabashedly himself and she loves that about him.’


The relationship is causing waves in the way that only Taylor Swift knows how, with recent stats claiming that her recent interest in the NFL had sparked a surge in new female football fans. Recent research by the Apex Marketing Group in the US even valued Swift’s association with the NFL as around $330 million in brand value to the Chiefs and the league. 


And, while engagement rumours rumble (Kelce was said by gossip site Page Six to have already ‘picked out a ring’), it seems that Swift and her man really are setting themselves up for the long haul. They are said by sources to spend most of their time at Kelce’s Kansas home, though have also been seen in New York, where Swift has an apartment. Both Swift and Kelce have been welcomed into the other’s extended family, with Swift’s mother Andrea spotted at multiple Chiefs games in the past few months, whilst Kelce was spotted at the Eras tour with her father Scott. Kelce says their values simply align. He 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.’


Most of all, say those in the know, Travis is unapologetically himself, and fun. ‘This relationship is a turning point for Taylor – she has never been happier,’ said a source. ‘It’s pure romance for her and that’s what she’s always strived for.’