Photo: Getty Images
Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce joked that Taylor Swift's fanbase, the Swifties, have an "unrealistic infatuation" with his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, during the latest episode of their 'New Heights' podcast released on Thursday (February 8).
The Kelces, who recorded the podcast together in Las Vegas days ahead of the Chiefs' Super Bowl LVIII matchup against the San Francisco 49ers, discussed the results from their NFL team name bracket. Jason acknowledged that Travis managed to juice the polls in favor of the Chiefs due to his popularity among the group amid his relationship with Swift, while he successfully attempted to counter it by campaigning for the Buffalo Bills, who eliminated his brother's team.
“I only campaigned for teams that were underrepresented. I just wanted voter turnout,” Jason said. “The Swifties have this unrealistic infatuation with the Chiefs and Travis Kelce.”
Jason claimed the Swifties were "only voting based on their love" for his brother, rather than for "their love of the team name."
"It's just ridiculous that you're throwing everything on the Swifties," Travis responded.
Jason's Eagles were defeated by the Minnesota Vikings, which he then claimed was due to the Swifties voting against him due to his campaign against his brother.
“[The Swifties] don’t understand how politics work, so they got really accusational of me manipulating votes, so they voted against me,” he said.
The bracket is currently in the final round with the Vikings facing the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On Wednesday (February 7) Travis appeared to cast doubt about the chances Swift will be able to attend Super Bowl LVIII given her scheduled concerts in Japan this week.
“She’s just working on entertaining them, making sure she’s ready for her performances and everything, but the Super Bowl, we’ll worry about if she can make it,” Kelce said via TMZ Sports.
Swift relaunched the international leg of her 'Eras Tour' at the Tokyo Dome Thursday (February 8) night local time and has four shows though what would be early Saturday (February 10) morning in the U.S. The singer would then have to fly across the globe to Las Vegas for the Chiefs' game against the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium.
“It’s a brutal flight, but she’ll get on her plane right after the concert,” the source told Page Six.
On January 28, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported that Swift "could still get to the Super Bowl" due to "the international dateline" as Tokyo is 17 hours ahead and her concert would start at 1:00 a.m. Las Vegas time, "so the morning before, essentially," and she'd be able to arrive at some point Saturday night.
Swift has attended all of the Chiefs' games that haven't conflicted with her touring schedule since September. The singer broke her silence on her relationship with Kelce while being featured as Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year' in December.
Swift praised Kelce for "adorably" putting her "on blast" when he revealed on his 'New Heights' podcast last July that he attempted and failed to give her a bracelet with his phone number while attending her 'Eras Tour' concert in Kansas City. Swift added that the two had spent "significant" time together before she initially attended a Chiefs game at Arrowhead Stadium in September, at which point they were already "a couple."
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift said. “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.”
“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” Swift added. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”