Travis Kelce’s neighbor Wes Bergmann claimed that the professional athlete’s relationship with girlfriend Taylor Swift started several months before they confirmed their romance in September 2023.
While appearing on “The Social Game” podcast, cohost Kellie Nalbandian explained that she had just learned Wes, 41, lived next to Travis, 35, in Kansas City. Due to his close proximity to the Kansas City Chiefs star, Wes claimed that he learned that Travis and Taylor, 35, were romantically involved months before their romance was revealed.
“He’s an enigma — on one hand, he’s like this big, tough football player,” Wes said of Travis. “On the other, he’s going to have about 12 Taylor Swift songs written about him.”
Wes then pointed out to cohost Michele Fitzgerald that she didn’t believe him when he first revealed that Taylor and Travis were dating. “OK and on that note, I was like the first person to know about any of this stuff and I tried to tell this woman a long time ago,” the Traitors star said about Michele, 34. “’They are together, just so you know’ and she didn’t believe it.”
“She didn’t believe it, she was like, ‘She only goes for artists,’” Wes continued. “I beat the validating of her showing up to games and stuff by like six months.”
Michele chimed in by arguing that Taylor tends to go for the “brooding artist” who are usually “a bit scrawnier” and are “womanizers in a lot of ways.” She continued, “And then you have him who seems chivalrous, an all-American football player and he has just been winning and crushing.”
“To me he’s the boy next door,” Wes responded about Travis.
Michele’s comment lines up with Taylor’s dating history prior to Travis. She was linked to Matty Healy from May 2023 until June of that year. Her brief fling with the 1975 frontman came shortly after she and Joe Alwyn called it quits after six years of dating in April 2023.
Travis first expressed interest in Taylor after he attended her Eras tour on July 8, 2023, at Arrowhead Stadium. He revealed on his “New Heights” podcast that he tried and failed to give her his phone number on a friendship bracelet, and rumors quickly began to swirl that they were an item.
However, the “Call It What You Want” singer did not hint that they were actually dating until she attended her first Chiefs game on September 24, 2023. While the football game appearance convinced many fans that they were an item, Taylor and Travis proved they were taking their time together seriously by continuing to make several public appearances together in the following months.
Taylor even reflected on their relationship and gave a glimpse into their timeline when she was named Time’s Person of the Year in December 2023.
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she told the outlet at the time. “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. 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.”
