Travis Kelce's Messiest On Screen Moments That Surely Made Taylor Cringe

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is undeniably one of the most notable players in the NFL today. Kelce is a three-time Super Bowl champion as part of the 2020s Chiefs dynasty (weakened as that dynasty has arguably become following their loss in Super Bowl LIX), and his relationship with pop juggernaut Taylor Swift turned him into a household name by introducing him to countless people well outside of the football sphere.

Kelce and Swift broke the internet by announcing their long-anticipated engagement in August 2025, and experts agree that the engagement ring Kelce chose proves just how much he really knows his bride-to-be. All that being said, with heightened fame and notoriety also comes heightened scrutiny, especially with a fanbase as fervent as Swift's. After all, football fans may be famously passionate, but they've got nothing on Swifties. (Maybe that's why so many NFL fans take issue with Swift's presence at games.)

With far more eyes on him than the average NFL star, any bit of controversy involving Kelce is naturally going to get a lot more attention. A lot of Swifties certainly seem to see flags redder than Kelce's Chiefs jersey. And while we don't doubt that Swift loves her touchdown-scoring beau, she does also have a brand and an image to protect. So, from alarming on-field behavior that fans haven't forgotten to old social media posts painting him in a less-than-flattering light, some of Kelce's messiest on-screen moments surely made Swift cringe.

In late 2023, Swifties had a field day upon discovering some of Travis Kelce's old X, formerly known as Twitter, posts from around 2010 and 2011, when he would have been in his early 20s playing college football in Cincinnati. They initially gushed about some of his wholesomely airheaded posts, in which he proudly announced that he was going to take a nap or shared how impressed he was about how fast a squirrel ate a piece of bread he gave it. However, some fans quickly turned on Travis when they dug a bit deeper, and unearthed now-deleted tweets in which he partook in body shaming and crassly judged women's appearances, along with other disrespectful comments.

This chatter broke the containment of the internet and even ended up on TV shows like the "The View," with the program's hosts debating whether or not Travis should be getting flak for ignorant posts he had made as a college student over a decade prior. After all, Travis still had a lot of growing up to do even by the time he joined the Chiefs.

In a November 2023 episode of his and older brother Jason Kelce's "New Heights" podcast, Travis didn't directly address some of the controversial tweets, instead focusing on the more humorous ones. That said, the younger Kelce brother did broadly disavow his old posting habits. "I was just using Twitter as like a diary. ... Just saying nonsense," he said. Taylor Swift, meanwhile, didn't touch this one with a 10-foot pole.

At Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024, Travis Kelce got people talking for all the wrong reasons. At one point during the game, an aggravated Kelce not only screamed in the face of Kanas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, but even chest-bumped him in the midst of his outburst, causing Reid to briefly lose his balance. Photos and videos of the incident quickly went viral on social media.

Many Swifties who had turned into the big game were less than amused by Kelce's behavior, with one writing on X, "I speak for most of the fanbase when I say Taylor needs to leave this man, he's assaulting a man for no reason!!!!" However, Reid himself seemed relatively unfazed by the whole thing. "I just love that the guy wants to play ... and he knows I love that, so he makes me feel young," the coach said (via CBS Sports). Of course, the fact that the Chiefs ultimately beat the San Francisco 49ers in overtime to claim a second consecutive league championship probably made the whole thing easier to put behind them.

Still, Kelce did apologize for his conduct a few days after the game on the "New Heights" podcast. "I did [cross a line]," he confessed, before offering some insight into his relationship with Reid. "I'm a passionate guy. I love Coach Reid. Coach Reid knows how much I love to play for him," he said. As for Taylor Swift, she didn't publicly address the incident.

Alexa, play "Oops!... I Did It Again" by Britney Spears. Travis Kelce once again got into it with Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid during a game against the New York Giants on September 21, 2025. Broadcast cameras picked up the heated exchange, with the two getting in each other's faces, and Reid actually being the one to bump Kelce this time around. "You can sense the frustration on both sides of that story," NBC commentator Mike Tirico said of the encounter (via People). And, look, NFL players and their coaches getting into mid-game arguments is by no means uncommon. But once again, Kelce's unique situation does make incidents involving him more attention-grabbing.

Still, Reid himself once again downplayed the severity of his exchange with Kelce. "I love Travis' passion," Reid said (via KSHB 41), adding, "I'm okay with that. ... He knows when to back off the pedal and knows when to push it, too. That's part [of what] I love about him ... Just, sometimes, I have to be the policeman." The Chiefs ultimately came out on top against the Giants, marking their first win of the 2025 season after two straight losses. Just one week earlier, though, they fell to the Philadelphia Eagles in a game where Kelce also drew eyes for angrily throwing his helmet to the ground. Sources speaking to gossip columnist Rob Shuter claim that the aforementioned Taylor Swift-adjacent attention had been weighing on Kelce, and that Swift herself was "worried" about him.

Are the Kansas City Chiefs washed? That's what some football fans were asking at the start of the 2025 NFL season in September. Seven months earlier, the Chiefs went into Super Bowl LIX with 17 wins and only two losses for the regular season and postseason, only to completely fumble the ball (both literally and figuratively) in the big game, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in a contest that was even more lopsided than its 40-22 final score would lead you to believe. Things continued to look bleak when September came around, with the Chiefs losing to the Los Angeles Chargers in their first regular-season game of the year. In other words, Travis Kelce and company definitely had something to prove when they once again found themselves up against the Eagles just a week later.

During the third quarter of the game, Kelce was visibly ecstatic after catching a pass and running for a first down. After the play, however, he appeared to gesture toward the lower half of his body. And while the helmet-throwing incident drew some snide comments on social media, what the NFL called "unsportsmanlike conduct" and an "obscene gesture" hit Kelce in the pocketbook. The league slapped the Chiefs tight end with a fine of $14,491. The worst part? Kelce and the Chiefs couldn't even back up the showboating, as they ended up losing to the Eagles 20-17. We're going to go out on a limb here and say that Taylor Swift most likely did not foot the bill.