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Travis Kelce is profiled in WSJ. Magazine’s current issue and the interview is SO GOOD. It’s thoughtful, not too football-heavy, but also not entirely about Taylor Swift. It hit the sweet spot – I learned a lot about Travis’s life beyond Tay, I learned his version of how he ended up manifesting his relationship with Tay, and he polished his “golden retriever boyfriend” credentials. There’s always debate about whether Travis is a himbo – I don’t think he is, but he’s himbo-adjacent. Like, a sweet jock with a heart of gold? Some highlights from this WSJ. Magazine piece:

Retirement talk & pain management: He thinks about retirement“more than anyone could ever imagine… That’s the only thing I’ve never really been open about – the discomfort. The pain. The lingering injuries—the 10 surgeries I’ve had that I still feel every single surgery to this day.”

How he met Taylor: It all started when he tried to meet Swift at her Arrowhead concert in July and got blocked, presumably by security. He then recounted the experience in a charming way on the podcast he does with Jason. Soon after, he says, he received an unbidden assist from inside Team Swift. “There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: Yo! Did you know he was coming? I had somebody playing Cupid.” He wasn’t aware at the time, however; the revelation only came later, after he looked down at his phone and got the shock of a lifetime. “She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out.” He lets slip that some of his early helpers were part of the Swift family tree. “She’ll probably hate me for saying this, but…when she came to Arrowhead, they gave her the big locker room as a dressing room, and her little cousins were taking pictures…in front of my locker.”

First date: “When I met her in New York, we had already kind of been talking, so I knew we could have a nice dinner and, like, a conversation, and what goes from there will go from there.” If anyone was nervous, he adds, it was his core group. “Everybody around me telling me: Don’t f— this up! And me sitting here saying: Yeah—got it.”

He was guarded about what he said about her at first: “That was the biggest thing to me: make sure I don’t say anything that would push Taylor away.”

Nowadays, he talks about Taylor openly: He doesn’t need to be asked about Taylor; he mentions her unreservedly, lavishes praise on her, calls her “hilarious,” “a genius,” notes that they share compatible worldviews, especially when it comes to family and work. “Everybody knows I’m a family guy. Her team is her family. Her family does a lot of stuff in terms of the tour, the marketing, being around, so I think she has a lot of those values as well, which is right up my alley.”

He’s a long-time Swiftie: “‘Blank Space’ was one I wanted to hear live for sure. I could make a bad guy good for the weekend. That’s a helluva line!” More often than not, he says, it was a Swiftian beat, a melody that captivated him. (“She writes catchy jingles.”) But lately he’s all about those lyrics; he’s scrutinized the breakup stuff. What a miracle, he says, the way Swift can turn life into poetry. “I’ve never been a man of words. Being around her, seeing how smart Taylor is, has been f—ing mind-blowing. I’m learning every day.”

Dealing with her level of fame: “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. When she acts like that I better not be the one acting all strange.”

He loves comedy films with Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell: “I told Taylor that I have that world, I’ve got to introduce it to her. I let her know: This is my jam right here.”

On Aaron Rodgers mocking his Pfizer endorsement: “Aaron’s always been cool to me. I knew he was trying to have some fun. He’s in a situation where Tuesdays are his game days…. So I get it, man, I’ve been injured too…. Who knows what the guy is going through?”

[From WSJ. Magazine]

The fact that Travis is probably telling Taylor that she needs to watch Tommy Boy, Happy Gilmore, Old School and Anchorman is… a lot. Taylor is a woman who wants to be accepted as a director and recognized as someone with a literary persona. He wanted to watch Billy Madison/I sighed and downloaded Aftersun. The rest of it is great though – I think “I’m not running away from any of it” is a great start. Is there a little part of me which thinks that Travis is also using this relationship to expand his sponsorship portfolio and make even more money with lucrative side-gigs? For sure. I think that’s part of it, but he genuinely adores her and he wants to be with her. He also wants to make even more money too.

Covers courtesy of WSJ. Magazine’s Instagram, photos courtesy of Backgrid.