Travis Kelce is my Roman empire. I am ashamed to admit how often I think about Taylor Swift’s American footballer boyfriend.
Like most people outside of the US, I'd never heard of him a few months ago. Now, my algorithm relentlessly serves me clips from the inane podcast (New Heights) he does with his footballer brother, Jason, along with videos of him adoringly watching Swift perform.
I’ve watched him record a charity Christmas song (a terrible parody of Fairytale of New York, now Fairytale of Philadelphia) and thoroughly enjoyed slow-mo montages of him celebrating touch-downs.
His fashion is wild, not necessarily in a good way, and he is a Very Handsome Man.
Why do I care? I don’t know. I think I’m trying to figure out if he’s good enough for Swift, who is one of the most impressive female role models in a generation. A hyper-talented, self-made billionaire.
Last week his old tweets resurfaced. Gulp. While they were mostly endearingly moronic (‘If you continue to do what you've done... Then you'll continue to only get what you've got…’) a few were straight from the misogyny 101 playbook (‘I feel like if u wanna be a cheerleader you have to pass a beauty test.... there’s too many ugly cheerleaders out here’).
They were written over 10 years ago so I think we can forgive the ill-judged musings of a twenty-something.
A fairly recent episode from earlier this year, saw him describing women as "breeders". You can imagine how Taylor's Swifties have reacted to that...
But, most of all, he seems to really, really enjoy being famous. A few years ago he was the star of a dating show called Catching Kelce which saw 50 women competing for a date with him (it has been described as “pretty rough viewing”) and, this month, making the most of his newfound global fame, he appears on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. In the accompanying interview he talks extensively about Swift. How they met, their early dates, what he loves about her.
Speaking to none other than Prince Harry's Spare ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer, Kelce thrilled protective Swifties everywhere by describing her as "smart" and "hilarious".
"I have never been a man of words. Being around her, seeing how smart Taylor is, has been f***ing mind-blowing. I'm learning every day," he said. On the fame he's taking full advantage of? "Obviously I've never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them. I've never dealt with it,' Kelce said. "But at the same time, I'm not running away from any of it."
Kelce, the Swifties and I are watching you...
