Taylor Swift said she had “a lot of people” whispering in her ear about Travis Kelce before they started dating in 2023

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce just dished all the juicy details about how their romance began.

During an episode of the New Heights podcast in August 2025, the couple, who went public with their relationship in October 2023, discussed everything from Kelce attending the Eras Tour and who played matchmaker to their first date.

“Andy [Reid] was vouching for you,” Swift said, giving the Kansas City Chiefs head coach and longtime friend of her dad, Scott, credit

. “There were a lot of people whispering in my ear about you.”

Kelce responded, “Thank you, Andy.”

But that isn’t the only way that they got in contact. Here’s everything to know about how Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce met and began dating.

 

When did Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce meet?

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in 2025.

Swift and Kelce’s relationship timeline started in July 2023, when the NFL football star was spotted attending her Eras Tour at Arrowhead Stadium — the Kansas City Chiefs’ home turf.

Kelce was seen watching the show from his private box as well as trading friendship bracelets with fans inside the venue.

Though Kelce had plans to give Swift a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it, the two didn’t connect after the show.

“I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs she sings, so I was a little butthurt that I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her,” Kelce explained on the New Heights podcast that same month.

During her New Heights podcast debut in August 2025, Swift jokingly referred to Kelce’s disappointment as a “man tantrum.”

“This dude didn’t get a meet and greet, and he’s making it everyone’s problem.

That’s what I thought at first,” she said, adding, “You realize he didn’t even reach out to [my] management.

He thought that because he knows the elevator lady, that he could talk to her about just getting down to my dressing room.”

Swift then went on to compare Kelce’s grand efforts to woo her to an ” ’80s John Hughes movie.”

“[It’s like] he was standing outside of my window with a boombox saying, ‘I want to date you! Do you want to go on a date with me?

I made you a friendship bracelet! Do you want to date me?’ ” she said, referencing the movie Say Anything.

She continued, “I was like, ‘If this guy’s not crazy, this is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.’ It was wild, but it worked. I’m glad it worked.”

 

Who introduced Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce?

Andy Reid; Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

For years, Reid playfully claimed he was the mastermind behind pairing up Swift and Kelce — and the couple finally confirmed it on the New Heights podcast.

“Whatever Andy Reid says, we’re gonna stand by. He said it, that’s what happened,” Swift said. Kelce added, “Cupid. Big Red. It’s all the same.”

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has also claimed he played “matchmaker” during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show in May 2024.

“I like to take some of the credit,” he said.

“I was the one who invited Travis to the first Taylor concert when the friendship bracelet [idea came up]. I had some input in there as well.”

Mahomes continued, “I was like, ‘Dude, you should go for it. Just go for it.’ I’m glad that it’s all worked out for the best.”

 

When did Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce go on their first date?

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in 2023.

Thanks to the encouragement from Reid and a few others, Swift reached out to Kelce, and things took off from there.

“She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out,” Kelce recalled to WSJ. Magazine in November 2023 about their first exchange.

After talking back and forth, the two met for a dinner date in New York City.

“On our first date, I legitimately asked him what it was like when the Chiefs played the Eagles in the Super Bowl, and he looked across the line of scrimmage and saw his brother standing five feet in front of him on the field,” Swift recalled on the New Heights podcast.

“[Travis] didn’t even look at me. Like, I now know what an insane question that was,” she continued.

“He was like, ‘Actually, I’m on the offense and my brother’s on the offense, and I’m only on the field at the same time as the defense.’ I thought everyone was on the field at the same time.”

The two later sparked romance rumors when Swift publicly cheered on Kelce at a Kansas City Chiefs game in September 2023.

However, in her candid interview with Time, Swift revealed they were already a couple by that point.

She noted that they started hanging out right after “Travis very adorably put [her] on blast on his podcast,” which she joked was “metal as hell.”

“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 continued. ”

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

In February 2024, Kelce clarified that the two had been seeing each other for about a month before she attended her first game, and called their time together “a crazy, crazy ride.”

After attending a few more games with her celebrity friends, Swift and Kelce went public with their relationship the following month when they were photographed holding hands in New York City following their Saturday Night Live appearance.