“She’s just such a genuine person,” long snapper James Winchester said of the pop star.
Travis Kelce was enchanted to have Taylor Swift at her first Kansas City Chiefs game in October, his teammate recalls.
On the latest episode of the Like a Farmer podcast Wednesday (May 8), long snapper James Winchester opened up about the pop star’s first Chiefs game at Arrowhead Stadium toward the beginning of her romance with Kelce — who was apparently rosy-cheeked due to her attending the Chiefs’ match against the Chicago Bears. “We’d heard rumors,” Winchester said. “We kinda heard, but [were] just like, ‘Ah, whatever.’”
It wasn’t until Winchester had a conversation on the sidelines with Chiefs equipment manager Jay White that he realized Swift was actually there in the flesh. “I just made this comment, I said, ‘Jay, I think this whole thing is just made up. I think it’s just a big rumor,’” the athlete recalled. “And Jay looked at me and he goes, ‘No dude, she’s here … she’s right there.’”
“I walked up to Trav,” Winchester continued. “I just said, ‘Hey, man, that’s cool she’s here. He’s like, ‘What do you mean? Did they put her up on the jumbotron or something?’ I’m like, ‘No, Jay just told me. That’s awesome, man, good for you.’ He’s just kind of smiling and, you know, blushing.”
The University of Oklahoma alum also revealed that he was present at the very beginning of Swift and Kelce’s love story, as he and his teammate both attended one of the “Anti-Hero” singer’s Eras Tour shows at Arrowhead in July. That’s where Kelce had originally intended on wooing his now-girlfriend by slipping her a bracelet with his phone number on it, an unsuccessful plan that the tight end lamented on his New Heights podcast shortly before he started dating Swift that summer.
Three months later, Swift made her first of many visits to Arrowhead to watch Kelce play, an event that absolutely blew up the internet at the time. Following the Chiefs’ victory against the Bears, the couple rode off into the distance together in Kelce’s convertible — and the rest was history.
“Later on that night I got to meet her, and the first thing she said was, ‘Hey, you’re the guy with the cute kids,’ because we’d had my son and daughter out on the field,” Winchester added on the podcast. “So I’m like, ‘Hey, I think I just became a T. Swift fan.’ We’re the same age, so I always heard her music. I’m a fan of her, yeah. Being around her this year and hearing everything … she’s just such a genuine person.”
Watch Winchester’s Like a Farmer interview below.
