Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have taken the sports world by storm in recent months.
The pop icon and legendary Kansas City Chiefs tight end outed themselves as a couple out of the blue ahead of the Chiefs’ week three National Football League (NFL) match up with the Chicago Bears. Swift attended the game in support of Kelce, obliterating viewership numbers for an otherwise expected blowout in favor of Kansas City. Chiefs’ ticket sales and Kelce jersey purchases also skyrocketed as a result of Swift’s involvement with the sport (just by being there).
Kansas City and the Kelce-Swift tandem have continued going on strong in the several weeks since as it’s now week 13 in the season. As big of deal as it’s (pretty randomly and unnecessarily) been made, former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Strawweight and Flyweight prospect, Paige VanZant, isn’t sold on the reality of any of it.
“I think that the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce ‘love story,’ I believe it’s 100 percent fake,” VanZant said on A Kickass Love Story. “Come for me, ‘Swifties.’ I have UFC fans coming for me. I think I can handle the ‘Swifties.’
“I believe it is 100 percent fake,” she continued. “It is publicity. It is — one, it’s huge for the NFL because yes, the NFL is big. Taylor Swift is huge and now she’s getting an entirely different demographic to come watch the NFL. Think of the wives that are buying Travis Kelce jerseys now. It’s a huge publicity play on both fronts. It’s good for Taylor Swift, it’s good for the NFL, it’s good for Travis Kelce. There is so much strategic stuff that’s happening.”
In terms of her sporting career, VanZant, 29, has scaled back her competitive days significantly since parting ways with UFC in 2020. VanZant (8-5 in MMA) turned to bare-knuckle boxing (BKB) after her run in MMA, fighting twice in Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) where she’d drop back-to-back unanimous decision losses to Britain Hart and Rachael Ostovich in 2021. “PVZ” also briefly signed with professional wrestling promotion, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), in 2022 and was seemingly about to start a career as a professional wrestler. She hasn’t been on AEW programming since its Double or Nothing event in May 2022.