A match made in fandom: Travis, Taylor and the weirdness of celebrity relationships

09:01+08:00, AM. Oct. 26, 2023 By Linda Holmes

Taylor Swift attends 'In Conversation With... Taylor Swift' during the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on September 09, 2022 in Toronto, Ontario. Amy Sussman/Getty Images hide caption

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Taylor Swift attends 'In Conversation With... Taylor Swift' during the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on September 09, 2022 in Toronto, Ontario.

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Could it be true love for Taylor and Travis? Sure! Why not?

Do you know how many of the bachelors who have been bachelors on are currently married to the woman they chose in the final episode? As of this writing, one. One! Out of 27 seasons. That is, let's acknowledge, hilarious. But even more hilarious is the fact that reportedly, who have met on various seasons of , which is designed to lead to marriage. The only logical conclusion to draw is that if you want to create lasting relationships, a setup designed to get compatible people married doesn't work as well as locking a bunch of young and horny randos in a house together for a couple of months, feeding them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and not letting them leave.

As far as we know, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have never been locked in a house together. As Brittany Luse and crisis PR person Molly McPherson discussed on NPR's , Swift (the megastar) and Kelce (the Kansas City Chiefs tight end) that is going great guns. And maybe they're in a real relationship, too. Who knows?

"Boston Rob" Mariano and Amber Brkich got engaged on the set of the final in 2004. Scott Gries/Getty Images hide caption

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"Boston Rob" Mariano and Amber Brkich got engaged on the set of the final in 2004.

Scott Gries/Getty Images

Really, truly, In the history of public relationships between celebrities, who among us can honestly say we have known who would last? Even the very most seemingly suspicious of relationships can flourish. Rob Mariano and Amber Brkich met on an all-star season of , and he proposed during the finale. In front of Jeff Probst! . What could have seemed more phony? What could have seemed more like a bit they were doing for attention? Well, they've been married for almost 20 years, and they have four kids, so if it's a bit, they've committed to it.

In fairness, what kind of a relationship for Taylor Swift would seem suspicious and publicity-seeking? It's tempting to say "a relationship with an ordinary person," but where in the world would Taylor Swift meet an ordinary person? On Hinge? At the grocery store? At a bar? According to the internet (and ), he went to one of her shows in July. He wanted to give her a friendship bracelet with his number on it, but it didn't work, and then the story got out there, and before you knew it, they were maybe/possibly/perhaps dating.

Now, certainly, you can choose to think this is absurd and that what, in fact happened was that her publicists and his publicists met in an underground lair beneath an active volcano, and after ceremonially burning some copies of while chanting "Co-ver! Co-ver! Co-ver!", they schemed to put together this entire story to inure to everyone's benefit, and Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce don't even like each other. There is a long history of suspicion that celebrity couples are cooked up for publicity reasons, whether it's because they're in a project together or, more insidiously, because the true nature of somebody's personal life has been deemed a potential liability.

Taylor Swift wears a friendship bracelet with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce's number 87 while watching a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers on Oct. 22, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. Charlie Riedel/AP hide caption

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Charlie Riedel/AP

Travis Kelce, on the other hand, had a dating show on E! back in 2016 called , which, , was being pretty successfully memory-holed until he connected with Swift. (His relationship with the woman he chose didn't last.) After that, until 2022, he had a five-year on-and-off relationship with journalist and influencer Kayla Nicole. That connection certainly never attracted this level of attention, but it brought its own scrutiny. So he's played the whole game before of drawing very fuzzy lines between public and private life. He's even got his own fandom, though it's dwarfed by hers.

You don't have to believe Taylor Swift is any sort of victim — at all — to think that it's functionally impossible for a normie to casually date a person as famous as she is who handles the rest of her life the way she does. Yes, she could have someone smuggled in and out of her hotel in a laundry cart, she could decline to comment on her personal life, and she could decide not to share herself with her fans beyond what happens on stage. But that would be a reversal of her entire oversharing strategy, in which her friends are part of her persona and her broken heart is part of her persona. This is exactly how Taylor Swift would be behaving if she were in a fake relationship with Travis Kelce, sure. But this is also exactly how Taylor Swift would be behaving if she were in a real relationship with Travis Kelce.

True love can be pretty boneheaded. Relationships that develop in the silliest of circumstances can thrive, and what circumstances we think of as silly can change. There was a time when the idea of connecting with somebody online was treated like an embarrassment; now, it's completely standard. People stay together who make no sense on paper, and sometimes that's beautiful, and sometimes it's devastating. (As Brian Krakow said in the very last episode of with the regrettable but common nihilism of teenagers, "If you, like, analyze why certain people end up with certain other people, it'll make you want to kill yourself.")

It doesn't matter to anybody else's life whether this relationship is real or not, nor is it something you can figure out from watching her watching him or watching them leave a football game together. Maybe it's PR. Maybe it's lust. Maybe it's going to be over in a month. Maybe it's going to last. Maybe she's going to write a song someday heavily hinting that somebody who wore pads and a helmet betrayed her. It's a weird and beautiful and ultimately unimportant thing: