It’s the TV show Taylor Swift’s boyfriend doesn’t want her fans to see.
Travis Kelce might be a familiar name to anyone who follows American football, but to many others, the name first passed their lips when it was revealed he was dating Tay-Tay.
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Suddenly, millions of Swifties around the world were Googling him, following him on social media and tuning into the Super Bowl for perhaps the first time in their lives.
Swifties wouldn’t have had to do too much digging to uncover a nugget from Kelce’s past that he now says he’s a little embarrassed about.
In 2016, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end starred in Catching Kelce, a reality TV dating show.
“Meet NFL superstar Travis Kelce: looking for love, and 50 WOMEN — 1 from every US State — have shown up to fight for him,” the show’s synopsis reads.
Of course, with all the interest around Kelce and Swift, the show has resurfaced — you can watch it now on 7plus.
And it has been reviewed in some not-so-flattering terms, with Vanity Fair writer Tom Kludt calling it “pretty rough viewing”.
“It was kind of like The Bachelor, except, instead of roses, I handed out footballs, and instead of watching, people did not,” Kelce joked on Saturday Night Live in March last year.
Speaking on the podcast The Pivot last year, Kelce made the remarkable claim that he did the show because he was “strapped for cash” — despite being on a multimillion-dollar contract.
“I was having so much fun buying whatever the hell I wanted to, going wherever the hell I wanted to,” he said.
“I wasn’t financially looking at this as, you know, I need to have money down the line.
“There were times in the offseason, I was avoiding the rent lady. It was that bad.”
The show’s producers were offering him a six-figure sum for two weeks of filming.
“And I was like, ‘Uhhh. And 50 ladies?’” he said.
“I’m like, ‘This is actually starting to sound a little better’.”
So he signed on the dotted line, and then embarked on reality TV madness, whittling 50 hopefuls down to three ladies before choosing Maya Benberry, a contestant from Kentucky.
However, the romance was not to last long.
When news broke that Kelce was dating Swift, Benberry shared her thoughts on his new and very famous girlfriend.
“Taylor seems like such a fun girl with a beautiful spirit, so I wish her the best of luck, but I wouldn’t be a girl’s girl if I didn’t advise her to be smart,” she said, before alluding to Kelce’s alleged tendency towards infidelity.
Kelce went on to date sports reporter Kayla Nicole from 2017 to 2022.
But 2023 was to be the Year of Taylor, and an even brighter spotlight was to shine on Kelce’s romantic life.
In the Netflix documentary Quarterback, released last year, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes revealed that Kelce “hates” the 2016 show in which he starred.
His sister-in-law Kylie Kelce also agreed with that assessment when she appeared on football podcast New Heights.
“I was like, ‘I know I’m new here, but that doesn’t sound like a great idea’,” she recalled telling him just before filming was due to start.
“As Kelce (later) said of the show, ‘What a time. Let’s forget all about it’.”
Unfortunately, the internet is forever, as Kelce and Swifties are both discovering.
You can watch Catching Kelce on 7plus.
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