By DAVE SKRETTA
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Close to 80,000 fans are expected to pack Arrowhead Stadium to watch the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs play the Baltimore Ravens in a rematch of the AFC championship game Thursday night, lifting the lid on the NFL season.
Many will be watching for Taylor Swift to appear in one of the stadium suites, too.
The pop superstar became one of the Chiefs’ biggest fans last season, when she began a high-profile romance with tight end Travis Kelce. He had failed in an attempt to deliver a friendship bracelet at one of her concerts, so Kelce took to social media to invite Swift to a game, and the “Anti-Hero” singer showed up for a September matchup with the Bears.
They continued to see each other throughout the season, whenever Swift was on break from her Eras Tour. The 14-time Grammy winner even made a much-publicized sprint from a stadium show in Japan to Las Vegas in time for the Super Bowl, where she partied with friends such as Blake Lively, enjoyed Post Malone’s performance of “America the Beautiful,” won what appeared to be a beer chugging contest, and then celebrated the Chiefs’ triumph by locking lips with Kelce on the field.
Along the way, Swift became close friends with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany.
During this past offseason, Kelce frequently dropped in on the Eras Tour, even making an on-stage cameo. Swift later said in a social media post she was still “cracking up/swooning over (Kelce’s) Eras Tour debut” before 90,000 screaming fans at Wembley Stadium in London, and that “she was never going to forget these shows.”
Indeed, it has been a busy offseason for both of the superstars.
Swift recently concluded the European leg of the Eras Tour with five consecutive shows at Wembley Stadium, and she is on break until October, when she begins the North American leg with stops across the U.S. and Canada stretching into December.
Kelce and his brother, retired Eagles center Jason Kelce, recently struck a deal reportedly worth nine figures to take their “New Heights” podcast to Amazon’s Wondery. He is due to appear in Ryan Murphy’s murder mystery “Grotesquerie” on FX debuting Sept. 25, and he is hosting “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity” on Prime Video premiering Oct. 16.
Then there’s the fact that the Chiefs, who have won two straight Super Bowls and three in the past five years, are chasing some history beginning Thursday night. No team has ever won the Lombardi Trophy three consecutive times.
Kelce was asked this week how he juggles everything, and he pointed to the Chiefs practice facility — and Arrowhead Stadium, which sits just up the hill and across the parking lot — as his sanctuary, where he is surrounded by his closest friends.
“I just love football and how it takes me away from life,” he explained, “and it gives me something I can feel genuinely happy about. I enjoy coming into the building, working on my craft, getting to understand a new game plan and perfecting that for the people around me. It gives me a purpose to kind of go about my day and to live my life. I have so much excitement doing it.”
Not everything has been smooth for Swift and Kelce this offseason, though.
Last month, Swift canceled three sold-out shows in Vienna after the CIA discovered intelligence that led to multiple arrests of men linked to the Islamic State group. The agency’s deputy director, David Cohen, said “they were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans — and were quite advanced in this.”
Then on Thursday, a spokesperson for Kelce denounced a document recently posted online that called into question the authenticity of their romance as “entirely false and fabricated.” The document, carrying the title “Comprehensive Media Plan For Travis Kelce’s Relations Following Breakup with Taylor Swift,” was posted on Reddit but has since been deleted.
It was posted about the same time that Kelce appeared on “The Rich Eisen Show,” where he discussed their relationship.
“She had just been so open to learning the game,” Kelce said. “I think what makes her so good in her profession is that she’s so detailed in every aspect of it, from the words to her music and even the releases and the music videos and everything. She’s just so detailed and a part of it, that I think she was just curious about the profession.”
Kelce even said that Swift had started drawing up some plays for him, though he noted with a smile, “She’s a little biased and just creates plays for me. So we’ll see if they can make coach (Andy) Reid’s office.”
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