Taylor Swift secretly visited Travis Kelce at games before going public with relationship

Taylor Swift first publicly attended Travis Kelce’s game in September 2023

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had a few opportunities to secretly get to know each other before going public with their relationship.

Kansas City Chiefs’ defensive coach, Dave Merritt, made the revelation about the early days of Swift and Kelce’s romance during a recent episode of The Sports Shop With Reese and K-Mac podcast. In September, the now-couple first made headlines when Swift cheered the football tight end on in Arrowhead Stadium, sparking speculation that they were dating. In December, the “Anti-Hero” singer confirmed that she and Kelce were officially together.

In The Sports Shop with Reese and K-Mac episode, Merritt said that while Swift first publicly attended Kelce’s game in September, she’d actually been there before that.

“When she started to come around, it was privately,” he explained. “She was coming into the stadiums without people really knowing it, until the camera put a big spotlight on it.”

Merrit went on to add that when he met Swift, she “actually added to what it was [the team]” was trying to do. He also expressed that she was welcomed to the Chiefs family with open arms, despite all the criticism she was facing amid her relationship with Kelce.

“There were so many people that were hating the fact that she was being shown on the TV that, you know what? You’re part of our family because you’re with Travis,” he explained. “So therefore, you’re our little sister.”

Merrit went on to emphasise that Swift affected the team in a “positive way,” noting that “everyone was excited that Travis was happy”. He then expressed how the “All Too Well” singer shaped her boyfriend.

“So when my player, a brother, is happy beside me, that helps me and that encourages me and so Travis comes in there a different man. So, she helped us,”

Merritt then quipped about Swift’s success as a member of the Chiefs kingdom, after she was in the stands in Las Vegas on 11 February when the team won the Super Bowl aginst the San Fracisco 49ers.

“She won a Super Bowl in her first year in the NFL,” the coach joked about Swift.

While Swift and Kelce went public with their relationship in September, the Grammy Award singer also said that they had some time to get to know each other beforehand. During an interview with Time in December, as she was named the publication’s Person of The Year, she first confirmed that she connected with Kelce in July, after he confessed on his podcast that he tried and failed to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it during one of her Eras Tour shows.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she explained. “We started hanging out right after that. 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.”

During the interview, Swift also first confirmed that when she famously attended Kelce’s game at Arrowhead Stadium in September, she was already dating him.

“By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. 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,” she said.

The “Cruel Summer” singer then confessed that while she knew that her love life had been heavily publicised, with every Chiefs game she’s attended, she’s still focused on being there for her boyfriend. She also said that she wasn’t trying to hide her relationship from the public eye.

“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she said. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

Since she started dating Kelce in September, Swift attended 13 of his games during the 2023-2024 NFL season. Earlier this month, she even attended the Super Bowl with some of her famous friends, including Blake Lively, Ice Spice, and Lana Del Rey. Her appearance at the game in Las Vegas came one night after she did a leg of her Eras Tour shows in Tokyo, Japan.

Kelce has also gone on to support his girlfriend’s career, as he attended one of her concerts in Argentina in September. During the event, she even changed the lyrics to her tune, “Karma,” to reflect her relationship, as she sang: “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me.”

Earlier this month, the NFL star travelled to Sydney, Australia, to attend her concert on 23 February. Prior to the show, the couple was seen at the Sydney Zoo holding hands as they got up close and personal with Australian wildlife during a private tour of the park, according to video footage obtained by Australia’s Channel 9 News.