KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — If you’re an avid football watcher or a Kansas City Chiefs fan, you may be feeling like you’ve seen slightly too much of Taylor Swift lately. She isn’t showing up to games just to get more screen time, the pop star explained in a recent interview.
Swift shared more details on her relationship, and her feelings about all the extra attention they’ve been getting, in an in-depth interview with Time magazine’s Sam Lansky after Swift was named Person of the Year.
It’s no surprise that Swift earned Time magazine’s annual honor. After all, as Lansky writes, “she became the main character of the world” this year.
“If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year?” Lansky said.
In Time’s new feature, she gave fans, better known as Swifties, even more details of her relationship with Kelce, setting the record straight on the rumors.
Swift said it all started after the Chiefs tight end called her out on his “New Heights” podcast. Kelce said he failed to give Swift his phone number at her Kansas City stop on the Eras Tour in July.
“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,” Swift said.
It wasn’t until mid-September that reports surfaced the two were “quietly hanging out.” That same month, Kelce said he’d invited Swift to a Chiefs game — and days later she stepped into Arrowhead Stadium.
Swift told Time magazine they were already a couple at that point.
“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.
Since then, she’s been to five Chiefs games, including last Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
Swift faced early criticism from some NFL fans, arguing that TV coverage was “overdoing it” with the amount of times the pop star was on screen.
“I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in,” she told Time. “There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once.”
But in the end, Swift said she only has one goal by coming to Chiefs games.
“I’m just there to support Travis,” she said. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”
And it turns out, even though Swift has previously said she’s a Philadelphia Eagles fan after growing up in Pennsylvania, she said she’s become a bigger football fan since going to Kelce’s games.
“Football is awesome, it turns out,” Swift said. “I’ve been missing out my whole life.”
Swift and Kelce have also been spotted out in New York City, and Kelce attended an Eras Tour show in Argentina.
“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.
