Taylor Swift Reveals Why She Went Public With Travis Kelce After ‘Effort’ of Hiding Joe Alwyn Romance

After more than six years of keeping her relationship with Joe Alwyn out of the spotlight, Taylor Swift is ready to talk about her love life. She opened up about her new romance with Travis Kelce for the first time in her Wednesday, December 6, interview with Time magazine.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Taylor, 33, who was named Time’s Person of the Year, said. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to know each other.”

Travis’ podcast declaration came in July after he attended the Eras tour at Arrowhead Stadium. He admitted that he wished he’d gotten to meet Taylor and give her his phone number at the show. The couple went public with their relationship on September 24 when the pop star attended Travis’ football game in Kansas City.

“By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple,” Taylor dished. “I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.”

The “Anti-Hero” singer has since attended several more Kansas City Chiefs games to cheer on Travis, 34. He was also in attendance at her Eras tour in Argentina on November 11. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves,” she explained. “We’re showing up for each other. Other people are there and we don’t care.”

This public display of affection is quite different from what Taylor experienced with Joe, 32, with whom she was rarely seen in public during the six years they were together. She subtly pointed this out in the Time interview, adding, “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And [Travis and I are] just proud of each other.”

She added, “Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in a house for a lot of years, I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”

Of course, there’s no shortage of scrutiny when Taylor shows up to an NFL stadium and is cheering her man on from a private box, but she’s been able to block out the noise. “I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in,” she admitted. “There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once. I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”

She also has a newfound appreciation for the sport. “Football is awesome, it turns out,” Taylor concluded. “I’ve been missing out my whole life.”