Donna Kelce still feels a sense of dread when thinking back on an interview where she was asked about her son Travis Kelce’s relationship with Taylor Swift.
For WSJ. Magazine’s December/January cover story on Travis, writer J.R. Moehringer talked to Donna, 71, about her son’s skyrocketing fame, and she addressed the early October interview she did on the Today show that went viral with Swifties, convinced that the NFL mom wasn’t a fan of the pop superstar.
During Donna’s sit down on Today, she was asked about her first time meeting Swift, 33, in a Kansas City Chiefs game suite.
After stating that the romance between her younger son and the 12-time Grammy winner was “fairly new,” Donna simply said spending time with Swift was “okay.”
According to the WSJ, once the interview aired, Travis immediately called his mother to assure her that she did a good job. To put her more at ease, the pro baller also complimented the green eyeglasses she wore that day.
Now that Travis and Swift’s relationship has soared past the “fairly new” stage, Donna does feel like she can open up a bit more, she told WSJ.
“I can tell you this,” she told the outlet, which said she was “beaming” with her response, “He’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time …. God bless him. He shot for the stars!”
Although Donna was careful not to reveal every detail of her youngest son’s private life, she did say that for anyone attempting to figure him out, they should look to Travis’ older brother Jason Kelce.
Travis “could never quite catch up” to Jason, 36, she said of when her boys were younger. “He was always just second, just searching to be the best, and never quite getting there.”
However, she could always count on the Chiefs tight end to catch up to his big brother in the kitchen. “They would sit down and eat whole chickens,” she said of their appetites.
Also interviewed for the cover story, Jason proudly discussed Travis’ jovial disposition.
“He just lives his life with so much joy,” the Philadelphia Eagles center, 36, said. “He’s always kind of surrounding himself with people who are funny, who have a zest for life; it’s one of the things that defines him.”
Jason reminisced on family time they spent together before the fame, when they would eat dinner together and watch television.
“We had one of those coffee tables that the top would lift up and meet you at your face if you were eating,” the father of three said with a loud and boisterous laugh.
Travis opens up in the interview about his relationship with Swift, from how they met to what he admires about the 12-time Grammy winner. Calling Swift both “hilarious” and “a genius,” he also revealed that he and the pop superstar share a similar outlook on family and work.
“Everybody knows I’m a family guy,” he said. “Her team is her family. Her family does a lot of stuff in terms of the tour, the marketing, being around, so I think she has a lot of those values as well, which is right up my alley.”
