Taylor Swift’s ‘keen’ texts that Travis Kelce GHOSTED after their first dates: She was ‘instantly serious’… but he wanted ‘no strings attached’, say insiders who reveal how romance almost didn’t happen https://t.co/p2pVhn0YnM
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) June 26, 2026
- In the summer of 2023, Kelce had a “no-strings-attached” mentality and was dating others at the same time before he and Taylor went public. A source says, “He wasn’t looking for anything serious – that’s for sure.” At the time, he had only been single for a year after ending a 5-year relationship.
- A second source confirmed that in the beginning “he was definitely still dating around.”
- Kelce and Swift weren’t exclusive until September 2023, when she attended one of his games at Arrowhead Stadium with his mother
- Another source said Kelce thought the friendship bracelet move was more of a joke and didn’t “think it was going to go anywhee.”
- In the early days, Kelce was slow to respond to Swift’s texts. “He wasn’t avoiding her, but you’re not going to be pressed onto something if you’re not looking for something serious. He just wasn’t pursuing her heavily. He’s a football player!”
- “Travis wasn’t looking for something serious and once you get into the Taylor world, it’s instantly serious.”
- “It’s the life I chose, I guess,” he told CBS Mornings in September 2024 after a year of dating Swift. “I have fun with it, it comes with the territory of wanting to do fun stuff like this and signing up for cool sponsorships like this and endorsements.”
- Keleigh Teller, wife of Miles Teller, was friendly with Kelce through her husband, so she acted as a go-between for the new couple, encouraging Kelce to take Swift seriously.
- Previously, Swift told Time Magazine, “This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell. 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.”
