CELEBRITY
Travis Kelce thanks ‘legendary’ J.R. Moehringer – the ghostwriter of Prince Harry’s book ‘Spare’ – for recent interview about Taylor Swift romance and life in the NFL
Travis Kelce has thanked J.R. Moehringer – the ghostwriter of Prince Harry’s controversial autobiography ‘Spare’ – for his recent extensive interview in the Wall Street Journal.
NFL star Kelce opened up on his romance with Taylor Swift, his life off the field and what might be in store once his football career is over.
Kelce wrote on Instagram on Saturday: ‘Can’t thank the legendary J. R. Moehringer enough for writing this piece about my life in the WSJ
‘It was an absolute honor to work with him and my guy @gstyles (the photographer for the interview).
‘I really appreciate everybody that was involved in making this happen!’
Kelce and Swift have dominated headlines with their whirlwind love story after the pop superstar first attended one of his games at Arrowhead Stadium in September.
The Anti-Hero hitmaker has since attended four Kansas City Chiefs games and the couple first went public with their relationship on a date night in New York City.
Kelce revealed that someone in Swift’s team helped set them up after he opened up on his failed attempt to give her his number after her an Eras show in Kansas City.
‘There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: Yo! Did you know he was coming? I had somebody playing Cupid,’ Kelce said.
It didn’t take long for them to arrange a first date but even for Kelce, who usually exudes confidence on the football field, there were some nerves.
Kelce describes the build-up as: ‘Everybody around me telling me ‘don’t f*** this up’ and me sitting here saying ‘yeah, got it’.
‘When I met her in New York, we had already kind of been talking, so I knew we could have a nice dinner and, like, a conversation, and what goes from there will go from there.’
He said he was worried about making a mis-step in those early days: ‘That was the biggest thing to me: make sure I don’t say anything that would push Taylor away.’
But they clearly hit it off and Kelce describes Swift as ‘hilarious’ and a ‘genius’.
Moehringer also managed to get Kelce to open up about a subject that he apparently refuses to discuss with his closest friends: retirement from the NFL.
‘…They all say Trav lives in the moment, Trav never thinks about tomorrow, Trav never worries about retirement, despite recently turning 34, making him a Gollum in the NFL, whereas Kelce confesses that he thinks about it nonstop, “more than anyone could ever imagine,”‘ Moehringer writes, adding that the tight end is in ’round-the-clock physical anguish’ as a result of the injuries he regularly sustains on the field.
The sit-down interview not-so-subtly opened the door to much speculation about Kelce’s plans for a memoir.
Although Kelce did not reveal his plans for life after the NFL, given the incredible global reaction to his relationship with Swift, it seems a book would not be out of the question – particularly one that would reveal the kinds of illuminating details about their romance that he shared with Moehringer.
Moehringer is best known for being the ghostwriter behind the Duke of Sussex’s explosive biography, Spare, which came out in January 2023 and quickly became one of the most talked-about books on the planet.
Throughout the tome, Prince Harry made a slew of shocking admissions about growing up as part of the royal family.
After graduating from Yale University in 1986, Moehringer, who was born in New York City but spent most of his childhood in Scottsdale, Arizona, started his career off as a news assistant at the New York Times.
In 1994, he landed a job as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and he received the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing in 2000.
Then, in 2005, he released a memoir, called The Tender Bar, which was wildly popular and was eventually turned into a film of the same name in 2022, which was directed by George Clooney and starred Ben Affleck.
In addition, Moehringer penned the 2012 novel Sutton, which is based on the life of notorious bank robber William Francis Sutton Jr., who stole an estimated $2 million and escaped prison three times throughout his life.
Spare wasn’t the first time he worked as a ghostwriter, as he also previously helped Andre Agassi pen his 2009 memoir Open, and teamed up with Nike founder Phil Knight for his 2016 memoir Shoe Dog.