Travis Kelce avoided a question about Taylor Swift’s exes Joe Alwyn and Jake Gyllenhaal.
On the 25 June episode of the Bussin’ With the Boys podcast, co-host Will Compton told the NFL star that “Karma” was one of his favorite songs by Swift, but added that he had no idea who the song was about. He asked the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, “‘Karma’ is Gyllenhaal, right? Was it Jake? Am I wrong?”
“What happened?” Kelce, 34, asked, dodging the question. The other co-host, Taylor Lewan, then made Kelce laugh as he broke down the lyric, “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me.”
However, Compton continued to press on, asking whether or not the line “the guy on the screen” in Swift’s album version was about Joe Alwyn. To which Kelce replied: “It was.”
Fans were convinced the football player was actively throwing shade at the 33-year-old Kinds of Kindness actor when he emphasized the word “was,” with some joking on X, formerly known as Twitter, that they needed “it was” on a T-shirt.
They also praised him for handling the co-host’s “nonsense,” adding that “saying Gyllenhaal in front of him is CRAZY.”
Another added: “Listen, if Travis wasn’t made for this… This life ain’t real. He handled the whole bit like a champ.”
Swift surprised fans when she first swapped the line from the song’s album version for the other that honored Kelce during a November 2023 show in Buenos Aires. She did the same thing again while performing the song at Wembley Stadium for the London leg of her Eras Tour on Saturday. The NFL star celebrated the sweet shout-out by high-fiving a fellow audience member.
Elsewhere in the Bussin’ With the Boys podcast, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end recalled what led to him “falling” for the “Down Bad” singer.
“She’s very self-aware,” he said, noting that she keenly understood aspects of his life that others could not. “And I think that’s why I really started to fall for her, was how genuine she is around friends [and] family.”
He continued: “It can get crazy for somebody with that much attention… and she just keeps it so chill and so cool.”
The NFL star added that Swift “really won me over” with how she handled her first public attendance of a Chiefs game in September 2023, in which they effectively hard-launched their relationship to the world.
