On Wednesday, Taylor Swift made her podcast debut on Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights. The segment ran for two hours, and they took advantage of every second, dishing on all the major conversation topics, including Swift and Travis’s love story — “It was the shooting your shot heard around the world,” Swift said — her journey to reclaiming her masters recordings, life updates and free time post-Eras Tour chaos and, of course, the major announcement you probably couldn’t have missed if you tried: her new album The Life of a Showgirl, which comes out on Oct. 3.
Perhaps one of the most memorable portions of the chat they had outside of the album announcement addressed two other news headlines that she couldn’t seem to escape the last two years: Her experience watching Travis play and being immersed in the NFL, and how she deals with public scrutiny, which she experienced greatly during football season, if you didn’t remember. Some felt the cameras at the games were cutting back to her quite frequently for attention and increasing NFL viewership ratings — the NFL needed it more than she did — while some had some more outwardly misogynistic takes about seeing a woman become such a presence in a traditionally male-dominated space.
Regardless of how you truly feel about her presence, whether it be at the games or as a performer in general, her podcast solidified several things: her honesty about her knowledge of football and learning about the sport, how her interest in it has grown and what she thinks of all the negative attention she’s received — in general, but also from what came with the media publicity.
Learning About the Game
Less than 10 minutes in, Swift immediately shared a string of nice comments about Travis, eventually saying he was “not judgmental about the fact that I knew nothing about the world you were in.” She proved that pretty quickly: On their first date, she even said she asked Travis “what it was like when the Chiefs played the Eagles in the Super Bowl and he looked across the field and saw his brother standing five feet in front of him.”
She says Travis explained it to her simply and without judgment, and she even makes a joke that she thought the game worked that Jared Goff and Josh Allen were on opposite ends of the field and going at each other.
“I am forever thankful for you diving into the football world wholeheartedly,” Travis said.
“Oh my god, I fell in love with it,” she said. “I became obsessed with it. I became a person who was running through the halls of my house screaming, ‘We drafted Xavier Worthy.’”
Travis even said that Swift was the first person to inform him of Kansas City picking Worthy in the first round of the draft. Even Jason chimed in on her growth as a football fan.
“You would ask some of the best questions when we were up in the booth, and there’s your desire to learn more, but your genuine excitement around it as well as your competitiveness,” he said.
The Travis Kelce Show Is Just Getting Started
If you’re already tired of this face, we have some bad newsTo be clear, though: Swift shouldn’t need to “prove herself” as a growing fan to gain respect of the men giving her football criticism, but she laid out her authentic feelings and excitement around the game very bluntly and energetically. Roughly an hour in, Swift again discussed how much she’s come to love the game and the respect she has for all the players.
“I love this new world that Travis has shown me because it’s really so fun,” she says. “It’s so exciting…the pressure on sports is just such a different type that I have such a respect for everyone.”
They continued with discussing the first game Swift went to, where she walked right through general admissions to enter the game while huddled in the middle of Travis’s “big, bulky” friends, which is really such an incredibly normal thing to do given her level of stardom. It clearly wasn’t anything she felt too worried about.
Complimenting Andy Reid
Who was one of the key players who claims they “set up” Swift and Travis getting together? None other than Kansas City head coach Andy Reid. And Swift was incredibly complimentary of him as a person, but also as a leader with such a legacy.
Jason brought up Reid’s claims, to which Swift responded, “Whatever Andy Reid says, we’re going to stand by. He says it? That’s what happened.”
Swift went on to say that Reid and her father are long-time friends, and she said she’s always had a “really positive vibe” about him. She also said that while she knew he worked in sports, she didn’t know exactly what, but she now knows “he is literally the most iconic, legendary coach of all time,” elaborating on his leadership style. She said he seems like he’s very composed and doesn’t lose his temper or composure.
“No, no,” Travis said. “He will rip you apart for sure.”
“But it’s not overdone, right?” she asked. “Like if you get it from him, you know you deserve it and you’re gonna shape up. That’s what I heard from you.” Jason and Travis both agreed to this, saying there’s validity to it and he wouldn’t be doing it unless he saw your greatness or ability.
“He’s funny, he’s cheeky,” Swift said. “It’s like, everything has a reason, everything is very intentional. I feel like he coaches and lives in a very intentional way, which I think is really awesome.”
When news about Travis having interest in Swift started spreading, she said people in her life reached out to her vouching for how great of a guy he is — Andy being one of them.
“Thank you, Andy,” Swift said to the camera. She made it evident that she has a lot of respect for the guy — as many people do — and has taken the time to learn about how he works as a leader, which feels like even more of a statement to how much Swift has learned and come to care for the sport and the Chiefs.
Being a Part of “Chiefs Kingdom”
One of the most prominent things to come out of Swift’s involvement in the Chiefs’ games is the influx of girls and women who became drawn to the sport. More specifically, how it positively impacted dads and their relationships with their daughters.
“How many people have come up to you guys talking about how much they’ve appreciated you being a part of the Chiefs, and their daughters all of a sudden being into sports?” Jason asked. “I get it all the time. I can’t imagine how much you guys get it.”
“It definitely feels like a lot of people say that to us, which is really kind, because there was never a thought in either of our heads that that was going to be a byproduct,” Swift said.
“Yeah, that was a pleasant surprise, seeing all the little girls in the stands at games, and you could see a proud father right there standing next to them,” Travis said. “It’s definitely been fun to see that.”
“I think like a lot of the the women and girls, maybe they watched one game to see me cheer on my boyfriend or whatever,” Swift said, “But if they stayed, which is what people are saying based on the numbers, that’s because the game is so great and it’s such an amazing, interesting thing to learn about.”
Regardless of the impact she did truly have on these relationships, she still gave most of the credit to the game itself, which is also such a testament to how much respect and awe she has for the league.
Travis and Swift even highlighted the similarities in what they do: It’s a team environment, there’s athleticism in both (standing and dancing for over three hours for 149 Eras Tour shows is clearly not something for the weak), the preparation that goes into it, the pre-show regimens, and they each are responsible for entertaining people for several hours. Even if the lingo is different, they essentially mean the same things, as Swift highlighted: dressing rooms are essentially locker rooms, rehearsals are practices, shows are games.
The respect for one another is clearly flourishing, and it’s an incredibly positive thing to find so much common ground with someone who, at the core of it, does have such a completely different job than you.
Media Attention and Scrutiny
“The media attention on your guys’ relationship, on the amount of people that talk about it constantly, the theories that are out there, of which I am probably way too invested in,” Jason mentioned. “How do you guys handle all of the noise and chatter about everything that’s going on in both of your lives?”
It’s clear that Swift has firm boundaries over what she pays attention to and what she doesn’t, and she laid down her mentality on that confidently. She doesn’t really care what a man has to say about her appearance at her boyfriend’s games, anyway. She let it roll right off her: “I’ve been in the music industry for 20 years. It’s pretty hard to hurt my feelings at this point.”
Travis called her a pro, even saying that it took him a little more time to be such a pro about it. “Her being so calm, cool, collected and so just real and understanding about everything that’s going on really made me grow up real fast in that aspect of things,” he said.
Swift said it helps that he finds a lot of the things they read online “truly hilarious.” If he sees it and laughs and doesn’t let it affect his day at all, it’s fed into the way she “metabolizes things.”
Swift said she’s all about constructive criticism, but she’s seen too many of her friends get affected by seeing comments and letting them ruin their day, and she had advice for them: Think of your energy as an expensive luxury item that not everyone can afford.
“What you spend your energy on, that’s the day,” she said. “If you were obsessing over one thing that you saw, like you saw some guy call you mid and you can’t stop thinking about it, that’s the day then. That’s the night then.”
Jason also acknowledged that people will click on things more if Swift’s name is in a tweet or a headline because people know it’ll “stir more controversy.” Swift also acknowledged that information is power, unless it comes from thinking that “everything is about you.”
“if your algorithm is giving you either criticisms of yourself or adulation or praise, you’re creating an ecosystem in which you’re the centerpiece of the table, and I just don’t think that’s healthy,” Swift said. “That’s not the way I want to move through the world, so I detach from the internet in a huge way.” And it’s true — her Instagram comments have been disabled for 10 years, she said. She emphasized that her business is only making music and taking care of her fans.
“I’m just sort of like, it’s not my business,” she said. “I have an actual business that I need to run…We’re busy having an actual relationship.”
All this to say, Swift is clearly very focused on enjoying football and not giving a shit about what public criticism she receives. So please stop whining, and have a little decency.
More Like This
This article appeared in an InsideHook newsletter. Sign up for free to get more on travel, wellness, style, drinking, and culture.