Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift after the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
NEW YORK — It started with
It started with a friendship bracelet. It ended with an engagement ring. Taylor Swift, the pop superstar, and Travis Kelce, the football champion, are engaged.
The fiances, both 35, announced the news in a joint post on Instagram on Tuesday. It is the latest chapter in the couple’s love story, one that has spanned two years, two Super Bowls, an album announcement and the highest-grossing tour of all time.
Here is a look at some of the major events in their relationship.
It started, fittingly, with a friendship bracelet.
It was way back in July 2023 that Kelce attended Swift’s Eras concert at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs play.
After, on his “New Heights” podcast with brother Jason Kelce, he professed to being disappointed—well, his word was “butthurt”—that he couldn’t meet Swift and present her with a bracelet with his phone number on it.
“She doesn’t meet anybody, or at least she didn’t want to meet me, so I took it personal,” he quipped. The podcast asked on Instagram: “Anyone know how to get a bracelet to @taylorswift13? … asking for a friend.”
But by that September, Kelce was hinting his efforts had achieved some success. He declined to elaborate amid speculation, telling an interviewer: “It is what it is.”
Clearly, though, something was happening. Soon, Kelce revealed he’d invited Swift to a game at Arrowhead. “I threw the ball in her court,” he said on another talk show.
Swift took Kelce up on his offer, appearing for all the world to see at the Chiefs-Bears game, cheering next to his mom, Donna Kelce. The two left the stadium in Kelce’s purple Chevelle “getaway car”—forgive the pun, but Kelce himself used it.
“Pretty ballsy,” Kelce said a few days later of Swift’s appearance, adding how much he loved seeing her cheer next to his mother.
It was the launch of a long series of appearances by Swift at Chiefs games. There was some online angst over whether Swift was distracting from football—while the NFL itself capitalized on her fandom. A day after the flashy Los Angeles premiere of her “Taylor Swift: Eras Tour” movie, she was back at Arrowhead.
And now it was time for Kelce to be the adoring fan. In November 2023, after a hiatus of two months, Swift brought her tour to Argentina, where she changed the lyrics of “Karma” to salute her beau. “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me,” she sang. Scott Swift, next to a beaming Kelce, applauded his daughter’s new flame.
