Travis Kelce may be “living the dream” — but he’s doing his best to stay “grounded.”
The Kansas City Chiefs tight end spoke to “Good Morning America” Thursday about maintaining his sense of self during his high-profile romance with Taylor Swift.
“When you have good family and friends around you, it makes that aspect of life that much easier,” he said. “I’ve always been a very grounded guy.”
He joked, “It might not come off like that when I’m playing.”Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock
Kelce, 34, noted, “It might not come off like that when I’m playing football, but off the field, I just want to be a genuine person.”
The “Catching Kelce” alum wore a black-and-white bandanna-print ASOS Design shirt priced at only $40 during the morning show interview.
Kelce did not divulge any more details about his relationship, instead gushing about his upcoming role in Ryan Murphy’s “Grotesquerie” series.
He also celebrated his and his brother Jason Kelce’s success with their “New Heights” podcast.Travis stayed similarly quiet about Swift, also 34, in Wednesday’s episode of the podcast, skirting around his Big Slick skit with Jason Sudeikis over the weekend.
Although he called the “Saturday Night Live” alum a “legend,” the athlete did not mention Sudeikis’ joke asking him to “make an honest woman” out of Swift.
Travis began dating the pop star last summer, and the duo made their love story public in September 2023.Swift waited three months to speak about Travis, praising his “awesome” football skills in her Time magazine cover story that December.
“I’m going to see him do what he loves, [and] we’re showing up for each other,” the Grammy winner said at the time. “We’re just proud of each other.”
Travis Kelce opened up about the seismic shifts in his life in a new interview with Good Morning America.The NFL star, 34, appeared on the Thursday, June 6, episode of the ABC morning show and discussed how he keeps a positive outlook amid his recent uptick in fame.
“When you have good family and friends around you, it makes that aspect of life that much easier,” he explained. “I’ve always been a very grounded guy, might not come off like that when I’m playing football. But off the field, I just want to be a genuine person. I try not to get too far down the road because you never know what opportunities are gonna present themselves.”
When asked to rank his life on a scale of one to 10, Kelce aimed higher. “Man, 20. 100. Man, I’m so fortunate, so grateful [for] everything that’s come my way in life,” he gushed.
Kelce noted that he’s been “living the dream” in the NFL offseason, even extending his resume to include acting in Ryan Murphy‘s latest project, Grotesquerie. “It’s a challenge,” he admitted. “I feel like an amateur right now, but I’m coachable. That’s one thing I know from being in sports, I am a coachable guy.”
While Kelce was already a celebrity in his own right, his stardom skyrocketed after he began dating Taylor Swift in the summer of 2023. The couple went public with their relationship in September 2023 and have been going strong ever since.
Kelce has remained relatively tight-lipped about his romance with Swift, 34, but in November 2023, he offered some insight into how they first connected. After he publicly shared the story of how he failed to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it at her July 2023 Eras Tour concert in Kansas City, she got in touch with him.
“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,” Kelce told WSJ. Magazine at the time. “She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out.”
Kelce also explained how he managed the attention that came with being in a relationship with Swift.
“Obviously I’ve never dated anyone with that kind of aura about them. … I’ve never dealt with it,” he said. “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.”
