Travis Kelce Reveals When He Actually Started Dating Taylor Swift Before Her First Chiefs Game

An important piece of the Tayvis timeline has finally been clarified, thanks to Travis Kelce. In a recent interview, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end revealed exactly how long he and Taylor Swift knew each other before she first broke the internet by attending one of his games at Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri late September. 

“We had known each other for close to a month up to that point,” Kelce said on The Pat McAfee Show Wednesday (Jan. 31), smiling. 

Leading up to that fateful Sept. 24 Chiefs vs. Chicago Bears game, the player had actually teased that Swift might attend on McAfee’s show. “I threw the ball in her court,” he said at the time. “I told her, ‘I’ve seen you rock the stage in Arrowhead, you might have to come see me rock the stage in Arrowhead.’” 

Even so, Swifties and NFL fans alike were shocked when the “Anti-Hero” singer did show up to cheer Kelce on in a box suite alongside his mom, Donna. But, as No. 87 said in the new interview, “It wasn’t just an out of the blue, ‘Hey, come to the game.’” 

“It’s exciting for me, but it was all brand new, man,” he added of the beginnings of his relationship with the musician. “From having the paparazzi follow me every single day into work to everybody having my name on their talk show every single day … It’s been a crazy, crazy ride that I could have never anticipated. But I’m having fun with it. The majority of the world is having fun with it, outside all the cranky NFL fans that just don’t want to see the Chiefs win.” 

Swift herself previously cleared up that she and Kelce were already a couple by the time she went to her first game, telling TIME in her Person of the Year cover story, “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.” 

“I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game?” she continued in the December interview. “We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.” 

Since then, the 12-time Grammy winner has attended about a dozen of Kelce’s games, and fans are hopeful she’ll make it to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas Feb. 11. At the AFC Championship game Sunday (Jan. 28), Swift joined the Ohio native down on the field at M&T Bank Stadium in Maryland following the Chiefs’ 17-10 victory against the Baltimore Ravens, kissing him in front of NFL cameras. 

“I love it when Taylor comes and supports me and enjoys the game with the fam and friends,” Kelce gushed to McAFee. “It’s been nothing but a wonderful year, man.” 

Watch Kelce on the Pat McAfee Show below.