Taylor Swift may have had her eyes on Travis Kelce months before the Kansas City Chiefs star infamously tried to send her a friendship bracelet at one of her shows.
Swift thought Kelce’s appearance on Saturday Night Live in March 2023 was funny, according to Ben Marshall of the New York–based comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy, which was hired to produce content for the show in 2021. Marshall spoke with comedian Mike Birbiglia on a recent episode of the podcast Working It Out.
“We worked with both Taylor and Travis Kelce before they got together,” Marshall told Birbiglia. “And we can cut this out if you guys don’t want to say this, but she kind of told us that she watched his SNL episode and saw him in our video and was like, ‘This guy seems funny.’ So a little bit brought them together.”
Newsweek reached out to Swift’s representation by email for comment.
Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images
In Kelce’s appearance with Please Don’t Destroy, the three-time Super Bowl champion plays Kurt Lightning, an over-the-top self-defense instructor trying to teach the trio how to defend themselves.
In the skit, which escalates in absurdist fashion, Kelce as Lightning hypes up each member of Please Don’t Destroy before violently knocking two of them out.
“Woohoo! Too slow, fatso,” Kelce exclaims at one point, dancing around and tossing shadow punches.
For her part, Swift appeared with the trio in 2021 as part of their “Three Sad Virgins” skit with Pete Davidson.
Swift and Kelce started dating five months after his turn as Kurt Lightning. Their relationship took the NFL world by storm when she attended his team’s game against the Chicago Bears last September, sitting with Kelce’s mother, Donna, in a luxury suite.
In his interview with Birbiglia, Marshall said the comedy group wanted to tell Jimmy Fallon about their Kelce/Swift connection but didn’t want to deal with the blowback if the couple broke up.
“I think that if then they break up, we will somehow be, like, pinned as causing this disaster,” Marshall said. “It’s just a very precarious situation. People have strong feelings.”
Please Don’t Destroy can rest easy now—Kelce and Swift still seem to be going strong following the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory last month. After she went to 13 of his games this year, including every postseason contest, he traveled to Australia to watch her perform during her Eras tour. The couple also took a private tour of the Sydney Zoo.
“We just have fun with it. We enjoy every single bit of it,” Kelce said on ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show shortly before the Super Bowl. “I love it when Taylor comes and supports me and enjoys the game with the fam and friends. But it’s been nothing but just a wonderful year.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.