August 10th, dusk, in a garden in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, just outside Kansas City.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have finished recording his New Heights podcast and are at the house of one of his friends, getting ready to go out for dinner,
He invites her to come outside with the words: ‘Let’s go out and have a glass of wine.’ And then comes the proposal.
His father Ed said on Tuesday that the beautiful moment which has caught the attention of the world took place some two weeks before the announcement and was private, low key – and encouraged heavily by him and Taylor’s father Scott.
Seeing how happy they were, the families had been getting ‘antsy’ about the apparent delay in Kelce popping the question.
Ed said: ‘He got her out there, they were about to go out to dinner. They got out there, and that’s when he asked her, and it was beautiful.’
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A source said: ‘It was only their second date and he went around to open her door. He pushed past her security guard and escorted her in himself’ (pictured at the SNL Afterparty in 2023)
The couple quickly started FaceTiming all their close family members to share the exciting news.
Ed adds: ‘As soon as I saw the FaceTime, I saw it was Travis and then I saw Taylor there with him, I knew what they were going to say, and they let us know.’
His son had created an incredible magic garden in his friend’s home, with hundreds of pale pink roses – in a scene which echoed artword for Taylor’s hit album Lover.
Ed, who is divorced from Travis’ mother Donna, adds that Travis was thinking of putting it off in order ‘to make some grand thing, to make it a big special event’.
But he was advised not to put it off by his father and by Taylor’s own father Scott Swift – whom he asked for permission. Ed told him: ‘You know, you could do it on the side of the road, do it any place that makes it a special event.’
Ed already feels his future daughter-in-law belongs in the family, saying that he’s never seen Travis happier. The family had an engagement celebration dinner on Sunday, before Taylor made the announcement on Tuesday.
That day, incidentally, happens to be the day after the birthday of her former best friend Blake Lively. I hear the two women have not communicated at all this year, so perhaps the timing of it just slipped Swift’s mind.
Ed Kelce told a local TV station: ‘We actually went to an event in [Kansas City] Sunday night,’ and afterwards, that he and Donna went back to Taylor and Travis’ home where the singer made them ‘a wonderful dinner’.
A source says: ‘She wants kids – multiple – and so does he. That’s why he didn’t wait to propose until the end of the season as expected. She’s getting older and time’s a-wasting!’ (Travis pictured with his niece Finnley earlier this year)
Travis’ father Ed said on Tuesday that the beautiful proposal took place some two weeks before the announcement and was private, low key (Travis and Ed pictured)
Travis was advised not to put off the engagement by his father and by Taylor’s own father Scott Swift – whom he asked for permission (Taylor pictured with her dad last year)
Ed added, ‘To just watch the two of them, just crazy about each other. It’s truly kinda neat. They’re just two young people very much in love.’
That much was obvious when Taylor Swift joined Kelce and his brother Jason on their New Heights podcast. She spoke of her new album being inspired by wild joy – and it was obvious that she was referring to her love story with Travis. Travis meanwhile – who wears his heart on his sleeve – told a magazine this summer: ‘I love being the happiest guy in the world.’
So why is this man – a handsome, wealthy jock, who was suspended for school for smoking dope and has a reputation as a beer-chugging party boy – become the one to finally make the just-so pop princess Taylor Swift so happy?
They certainly make an interesting couple – Swift always the epitome of discipline and control, clever, driven, private, implacable about ownership of her songs, and prone to total fallings-out with members of her girl squad. And then there’s Travis – a fun-loving if slightly goofy American football star, who posed bare chested with an alligator in a swamp for a recent magazine cover.
As we shall see, their values are aligned and they have much in common – and Travis is about to pivot into a new and lucrative career as an actor and TV host as his sporting career comes to a close.
What Swift, 35, has found so refreshing, insiders say, is that he doesn’t care about the attention of the world, and has taught her to be less of a closed book and to open up to living more boldly. He has given one of the world’s most famous women a roadmap to a new way of living.
It’s taken a while and as we all know – because she has mined her heartbreak so beautifully – she’s been let down, cheated on, rejected and disappointed along the way by other men.
Pop star Harry Styles didn’t come close to committing, neither did singer John Mayer. The 1975 singer Matty Healy was an opposites-attract fling which was over almost as soon as it began.
Introverted British actor Joe Alwyn had seemed to be the one, but after more than six years, they got to the point where it was marry or split, and Taylor felt he was not going to make her happy. In the end, she felt he let her down.
One source says today: ‘There’s no controversy over the engagement, it’s just a wonderful love story. Taylor and Travis are happy and everyone on both sides is just really happy.
‘I knew this was “it” the first time I saw her get out of a car with him. It was only their second date and he went around to open her door. He pushed past her security guard and escorted her in himself.
‘Taylor looked shocked and delighted. We all thought she’d marry him after we saw that.
‘For those who knew Joe Alwyn – he would literally run ahead of her and jump in a car and let her fend for herself, so this was a huge departure.
‘Travis is a man big enough to handle her life – in every way. It’s the first time she has had that.’
Travis had created an incredible magic garden in his friend’s home, with hundreds of pale pink roses – in a scene which echoed Taylor’s video for the song Lovers
The sports star doesn’t care about the attention of the world, and has taught her to be less of a closed book and to open up to living more boldly (pictured at the Super Bowl in February 2024)
Taylor joined Kelce and his brother Jason on their New Heights podcast earlier this month and spoke of her new album being inspired by wild joy – referring to her love story with Travis
As to the timing, which is before what looks like Kelce’s final season in the NFL – there is a reason for that.
The source says: ‘She wants kids – multiple – and so does he. That’s why he didn’t wait to propose until the end of the season as expected. She’s getting older and time’s a-wasting!’
The romance was sparked after Travis, 35, who plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs and is a Super Bowl-winning star in his own right, made an abortive attempt to get back stage to see Swift.
He had nursed a not-so-secret crush on her and went to see her on the Kansas City stop of the Eras tour on July 7th, 2023.
He was carrying a friendship bracelet bearing his ‘number’ that he hoped to give Taylor. He’s not said if this was his jersey or phone number.
He didn’t get in so he told the story on his podcast. ‘I did the whole friendship bracelet thing and told everyone how hurt I was that I didn’t get to meet Taylor,’ he said.
Swift said: ‘I was like, if this guy isn’t crazy, which is a big if, this is the sort of thing I’ve been writing songs about since I was a teenager.
‘It felt like a modern version of standing outside my window with a boombox like, ‘I want to date you! Do you want to go on a date with me? I made you a friendship bracelet’. It was wild, but it worked. I’m glad it worked.’
‘My relatives, my cousins, were like, ‘Please, please, please, he’s amazing’. There were friends that were like, ‘He’s actually an amazing guy, he’s so great’. There was a lot of people whispering in my ear.’ One of them was actor Miles Teller, who is a mutual friend.
She added: ‘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.’
The pair went public on September 24, 2023, with Swift seen watching Travis play for the Chiefs in a win over the Chicago Bears. By then, they were an item. As Swift told Time magazine: ‘We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.’
But it was a new, less guarded Swift. Rather than shy away from the attention, Swift cheered and screamed ‘Let’s go!’ when Travis scored a touchdown.
He said afterwards on his podcast: ‘Shoutout to Taylor for pulling up, that was pretty ballsy. I just thought it was awesome how everyone in the suite had nothing but great things to say about her, the friends and family.’
He added that his friends and teammates were quick with advice. ‘Everybody around me telling me: Don’t f–k this up! And me sitting here saying: Yeah — got it. That was the biggest thing to me: make sure I don’t say anything that would push Taylor away.’
The romance was sparked after Travis, 35, made an abortive attempt to get back stage to see Swift (Taylor pictured with Ed Kelce at an NFL game in September 2024)
Ed already feels his future daughter-in-law belongs in the family, saying that he’s never seen Travis happier (pictured at the US Open in 2024)
Earlier this month, Taylor spoke about their relationship for the first time and said she had found a love like never before
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal he said that she had dealt amazingly with being booed by New England Patriots fans at a game in December 2023. He added: ‘I’ve never been a man of words. Being around her, seeing how smart Taylor is, has been mind-blowing. I’m learning every day.’
Swift says that they like to bake bread together and that his sourdough ends up with chest hairs in it, and hers with cat hairs.
Their relationship became one the most talked about stories in the world, with Travis seen at a number of Taylor’s shows on her record-breaking Eras World Tour. He even came out on stage with her at London’s Wembley Stadium in a surprise for fans.
Earlier this month, Taylor spoke about their relationship for the first time and said she had found a love like never before.
She added: ‘He is the good kind of crazy. I knew he wasn’t crazy the first couple of times we talked.
‘He was truly getting to know me, that was very natural, pure and normal. The way he could make me laugh about normal things. Travis is just a vibe-booster in everyone’s life he is in. He is like a human exclamation mark.’
The ‘human exclamation mark’ helped her to change her life.
She said that she regretted in hindsight the way that she retreated after her run-in with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, which started after West interrupted her Video Music Awards’s acceptance speech in 2009 to say Beyoncé should have won.
‘Life is short,’ she said. ‘Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.’
For his part Travis – a lauded sportsman with his own public profile – is comfortable to step up and be at her side. In fact, he loves being her plus one.
‘Obviously I’ve never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them… I’ve never dealt with it. But at the same time, I’m not running away from any of it. The scrutiny she gets, how much she has a magnifying glass on her, every single day, paparazzi outside her house, outside every restaurant she goes to, after every flight she gets off, and she’s just living, enjoying life.’
She seems to love everything about him. He is a family man who adores his mother, Donna – referring to her as ‘the heavyweight champ’. A love for your mother is non-negotiable – there is no one Swift loves more than her mum Andrea.
Donna is an impressive figure. she worked her way up from bank teller to finance executive and supported Travis and his NFL playing brother with all her heart.
She also loves his down to earth group of friends. ‘A huge green flag for me was that Travis has had the same friends since he was four. He is so loyal,’ she said.
He is a family man who adores his mother, Donna – referring to her as ‘the heavyweight champ’. A love for your mother is non-negotiable for Swift (pictured with her mum Andrea in 2007)
Donna is an impressive figure. she worked her way up from bank teller to finance executive and supported Travis and his NFL playing brother (Donna pictured with Taylor and her dad Scott)
What comes next for the couple remains to be seen. He has appeared in golf comedy Happy Gilmore 2 and also has a part in a new Ryan Murphy drama series.
She has The Life of a Showgirl about to come out and says of the album, her twelfth: ‘I’m so proud of it, and it just comes from, like, the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life, and so that effervescence has come through on this record.’
‘I wanted the album to feel the way my life felt, and this completely matches the way that my life has felt.’
And of course there will be wedding planning – with a who’s who of the A-list set to attend what will surely be the wedding of the year.