The music superstar and the football player have become part of one another’s respective brands. Will this continue after they head down the aisle?
It’s a love story and baby, she said yes.
Taylor Swift lived out the lyrics from her hit, “Love Story” recently when Travis Kelce, her boyfriend of two years and tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, proposed to her. The two announced the news with a joint Instagram post that garnered over 30 million likes.
The public announcement is a stark shift for Swift, whose last long-term relationship was kept under the radar for years. Now, Swift’s romance with Kelce has become part of her public image, with Kelce appearing onstage at one of her concerts during the Eras tour and her announcing her new album on his podcast.
But how will this play out in the future as the two undergo a wedding and a marriage? According to Northeastern University experts, the two will likely continue their relationship in the public eye and use it to their advantage.
“They’re smart people,” says Peter Mancusi, a communications crisis manager and associate teaching professor of journalism at Northeastern University. “They’re going to work that out. Imagine the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce wedding. It’s going to be our version of Princess Diana. … I bet you they will have a very, very classy, dignified wedding.”
For many years, Swift was more discreet with her romances. Most of what fans know about her relationship with actor Joe Alwyn was decoded from her song lyrics.
But Swift’s romance with Kelce has been more out in the open from the moment they were spotted together for the first time. Both showed up for each other publicly, with Swift often appearing at Kelce’s games and Kelce attending several shows during the Eras tour.
The pair seems to have similar values when it comes to the public spotlight, says Elizabeth Glowacki, assistant teaching professor in communications and health sciences at Northeastern University, which can be a positive thing.
“They have similar values in terms of (wanting) to be a public-facing couple,” says Glowacki, who teaches a course on interpersonal communication. “The fact they have that in common is helpful. Regardless of whether you’re famous or not, sometimes couples are not on the same page about the extent to which they want to be seen or out. Privacy boundaries are necessary in every relationship.”
Since they were first linked in 2023, Swift and Kelce have toed the line of sharing just enough about their relationship to get fans invested without being overexposed, Mancusi says. What they have shared, from the story of how they met to their engagement post, seems to be done to engage fans while also making them seem relatable.
Swift and Kelce started dating after he tried (and failed) to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it when the Eras tour was in Kansas City. Kelce later called Swift out about this on his podcast in what Mancusi says is a very “boy meets girl” sort of story (for celebrities).
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift told Time magazine when she was named their Person of the Year in 2023. “We started hanging out right after that.”
On Aug. 26, the pair announced their engagement in a joint Instagram post with photos of them in a garden captioned: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” seemingly referencing their drastically different fields.
“Aside from the size of the engagement ring, it looked like it could have been a normal couple,” Mancusi says.
Mancusi says he suspects these glimpses will continue as their relationship moves forward as a way for them to control the narrative.
“They controlled the whole thing,” he adds. “They put out five pictures on Instagram. Everybody saw the ring. The stories got written in a very, very positive way. Is it better to do it that way and control the narrative yourself, or to have people guessing and asking you a million questions? Taylor Swift is very good at communicating with her audience. I am positive they did it this way so they could control it. And I think they have allowed people in just enough.”
Mancusi predicts the two will continue to be part of each other’s brands in an organic and harmonious way, maintaining separate careers while continuing to support one another. It’s also possible that being married shifts the public image of both, especially for Swift, who has built a career writing songs about her love life.
“Now that she’s getting married, does that change the script?” Glowacki says. “Maybe she’ll play up the whole married thing and have a completely new brand.”
But being in the public eye will not be without its challenges. For starters, their actions will reflect more on each other than ever before, especially Kelce.
“He’s going to have to be careful with that,” Mancusi adds. “He can’t do anything that diminishes the Taylor Swift brand.”
While many have fallen for the pair based on the hugs they shared on the Eras tour or the compliments they exchanged on Kelce’s podcast, Glowacki said it’s also important that they’re thriving behind the scenes, including when it comes to managing each other’s career goals.
“It might be hard to imagine now, but the spotlight won’t be on them forever,” Glowacki said. “In 10, 20 years, will they be able to just enjoy life without all the publicity?”