NEW YORK (AP) — It began with a friendship bracelet. It ended with an engagement ring. Taylor Swift, the pop famous person, and Travis Kelce, the soccer champion, are engaged.
The fiances, each 35, introduced the information in a joint publish on Instagram on Tuesday. It’s the newest chapter within the couple’s love story, one which has spanned two years, two Tremendous Bowls, an album announcement and the highest-grossing tour of all time.
Here’s a take a look at a number of the main occasions of their relationship.
A friendship bracelet, undelivered
It began, fittingly, with a friendship bracelet.
It was method again in July 2023 that Kelce attended Swift’s Eras live performance at Arrowhead Stadium, the place the Chiefs play.
After, on his “New Heights” podcast with brother Jason Kelce, he professed to being upset — nicely, his phrase was “butthurt” — that he couldn’t meet Swift and current her with a bracelet together with his cellphone quantity 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 requested on Instagram: “Anyone know how to get a bracelet to @taylorswift13? … asking for a friend.”
Drivin’ the getaway automobile
However by that September, Kelce was hinting his efforts had achieved some success. He declined to elaborate amid hypothesis, telling an interviewer: “It is what it is.”
Clearly, although, one thing was occurring. Quickly, Kelce revealed he’d invited Swift to a recreation at Arrowhead. “I threw the ball in her court,” he mentioned on one other discuss present.
Swift took Kelce up on his supply, showing for all of the world to see on the Chiefs-Bears recreation, cheering subsequent to his mother, Donna Kelce. The 2 left the stadium in Kelce’s purple Chevelle “getaway car” — forgive the pun, however Kelce himself used it.
“Pretty ballsy,” Kelce mentioned just a few days later of Swift’s look, including how a lot he liked seeing her cheer subsequent to his mom.
It was the launch of an extended sequence of appearances by Swift at Chiefs video games. There was some on-line angst over whether or not Swift was distracting from soccer — whereas the NFL itself capitalized on her fandom. A day after the flashy Los Angeles premiere of her “Taylor Swift: Eras Tour” film, she was again at Arrowhead.
Karma is the man on the Chiefs
And now it was time for Kelce to be the adoring fan. In November 2023, Swift kicked off the worldwide leg of her Eras tour, starting in Argentina, the place she modified the lyrics of “Karma” to salute her beau. “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me,” she sang. Scott Swift, subsequent to a beaming Kelce, applauded his daughter’s new flame.
When Time journal introduced its individual of the yr, few had been shocked. Within the Time interview, Swift spoke about her relationship.
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift mentioned, including that they’d already been a pair earlier than that first Chiefs recreation cameo.
Quickly after, issues had been heating up on the soccer area — which means the Chiefs had been heading to the Tremendous Bowl. On the AFC championship recreation, the couple made it clear they had been advantageous with no matter consideration was coming their method. In the midst of the sphere in Baltimore, after the Chiefs beat the Ravens, Swift and Kelce kissed. “I love you,” Kelce mentioned. “So much it’s not funny.”
A race throughout 9 time zones
There was one recreation left. Followers questioned: How would Swift make it from her Tokyo reveals to the Tremendous Bowl in Las Vegas?
“This week is truly the best kind of chaos,” Swift posted on Instagram.
Chaos certainly. In a single week of February 2024, Swift attended the Grammys in Los Angeles, jetted to Tokyo for 4 live shows, then jumped again onto her non-public airplane to make the Tremendous Bowl with time to spare. To get there, she crossed 9 time zones and the worldwide dateline.
“She’s rewriting the history books herself,” Kelce mentioned a day after the Grammys, the place Swift had gained album of the yr for a document fourth time. “I told her I’ll have to hold up my end of the bargain and come home with hardware, too.”
And he did. The 2 kissed on the sphere once more after the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers, Swift in her “87” necklace.
On the street once more
Inside days, Swift was on the street once more, with Kelce becoming a member of her in Australia for some koala-cuddling on the zoo.
In Paris, Swift launched a piece from “The Tortured Poets Department,” her new album. Followers questioned if Kelce had made his method into a few of its lyrics — like “You knew what you wanted and, boy, you got her,” from “So High School.”
However the spotlight got here in June, throughout a celebrity-packed set of live shows in London. There, Kelce made his Eras stage debut, donning a tuxedo and high hat and carrying Swift in his arms throughout a choreographed bit earlier than “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
“I’m still cracking up/swooning,” Swift wrote afterward Instagram.
‘Happiness and fun and magic’
As for Kelce, he spoke with delight concerning the relationship, noting on the “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast that he had no want to cover something.
“That’s my girl,” he mentioned. “That’s my lady. I’m proud of that.”
Swift echoed that emotion when she accepted an MTV Video Music Award final September, shouting out “my boyfriend Travis” in her speech.
“Everything this man touches turns to happiness and fun and magic,” she mentioned.
‘I am just a jamoke supporting his girlfriend’
All through the summer time and fall of 2024, Kelce attended a lot of Swift’s remaining tour dates and talked about her on “New Heights,” formally referring to her as “his girlfriend” in a July episode.
“She is every bit of what everyone makes her out to be. She’s so awesome. Some of these people you meet, and you’re just like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’” he mentioned. “You are unbelievable, your talent is unbelievable, how you present yourself is unbelievable and I am just a jamoke supporting his girlfriend.”
Swift, too, was recurrently photographed attending Kelce’s video games — together with the 2025 Tremendous Bowl.
Lights, digital camera, motion, soccer
A month post-Tremendous Bowl, the couple made their red-carpet debut on the Tight Finish College in June, an annual three-day coaching summit based by Kelce, George Kittle and Greg Olsen.
They had been then noticed at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, the place Swift hopped on stage to carry out “Shake it Off” with nation singer Kane Brown. For followers, it marked yet one more second of the couple displaying very public help and admiration for each other.
‘The Life of a Showgirl’
A pair that collaborates collectively, stays collectively.
Swift introduced her extremely anticipated twelfth studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” in mid-August and included Kelce within the rollout. It started with a tease from “New Heights,” which later revealed Swift would seem in an episode the next day.
Swift advised the Kelce brothers she wished to point out them one thing, revealing a mint-green briefcase that featured her initials in orange. Jason Kelce requested what was in it, prompting her to drag out a vinyl document.
‘Our jobs are very similar’
Within the two-hour “New Heights” episode that includes Swift, she went into element concerning the pair’s summer time following the Tremendous Bowl. She mentioned she spent appreciable time in Florida with Travis Kelce. She additionally mentioned “our jobs are very similar”: They revolve round entertaining “people for three hours in NFL stadiums.”
On her self-described “favorite podcast,” Swift credited “New Heights” for getting her a boyfriend. “This is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager,” she mentioned of their romance.
And Kelce credited the tour for, nicely, getting him a girlfriend. “I see you on that stage and see how you can get an entire stadium going, and then I get you in a room and it’s like I’ve known you forever,” he mentioned. “It’s the easiest conversation I ever had, and it was just so much fun that it knocked my socks off.”
Jock, meet author
In late August, in a five-photo carousel shared to each Swift and Kelce’s official Instagram accounts, the couple introduced their engagement. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” she wrote in her caption.
It’s unclear when and the place the 2 acquired engaged.
