Taylor Swift And Travis Kelce Started Dating *Way* Earlier Than Everyone Thought

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In unsurprising news to Swifties everywhere: Taylor Swift was just named TIME's 2023 Person of the Year. In the interview, she mentions a few other notable folks—fellow music superstar Beyoncé, Barbie director Greta Gerwig, and, oh yeah, her boyfriend Travis Kelce.

And what she says about her relationship with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end might *actually* be surprising news to Swifties. Turns out, they started dating way before the public suspected. “This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Taylor told TIME. “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 get to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. 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.”

She also went on to explain how the couple approached sharing their romance with the world. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” Taylor said. “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 we’re just proud of each other.”

Of course, this isn't Taylor's first public relationship rodeo. Over the years, she's written songs about partners who've let her be jeweled, and the ones she knew were trouble when they walked in. Below, see everyone Taylor has publicly dated, and which songs she *may* have written about them.

2008: Joe Jonas

Ah, yes. The original Taylor Swift Boyfriend. Joe J and Taylor dated for a few months back in 2008, but they broke up in October of that year. "We were children," Joe told Andy Cohen in 2016, per ET. "We were 18, 19. Young enough."

Taylor infamously went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2008 and said Joe dumped her during a phone call that lasted less than a minute. “You know what it's like, when I find that person that is right for me, he'll be wonderful...When I look at that person, I'm not even going to remember the boy who broke up with me over the phone in 25 seconds when I was 18,” she said.

Taylor penned her Fearless track "Forever and Always," about Joe.

"[It's] a song about watching somebody completely fade away in a relationship and wondering what you did wrong," she told People.

But that's not the only song to come out of the relationship. The Jonas Brothers track "Much Better" also seems Taylor-inspired: "I get a rep for breakin' hearts / Now I'm done with superstars / And all the tears on her guitar."

On a much-later Ellen episode in 2019, she admitted she shouldn't have talked about their break up on air during the show's "Burning Questions" segment. She said the 2008 interview was the most rebellious thing she did as a teenager. "That was too much," she said of the moment in 2019. "[Joe and I] laugh about it now."

At a Jonas Brothers concert in 2022, Joe changed the "Much Better" lyrics to "Now I'm cool with superstars," per Billboard.

Taylor's songs "Mr. Perfectly Fine," "Better Than Revenge," and "Holy Ground," are also rumored to have been inspired by the JoBro, per Distractify. There are even some lyrics in her song "invisible string" that seem to be a callback to her relationship with Joe.

"Cold was the steel of my axe to grind / For the boys who broke my heart / Now I sent their babies presents."

It was rumored that Taylor may have sent Joe and Sophie Turner, Joe Jonas' estranged wife, a gift, as the ex-couple welcomed their daughter, Willa, shortly before "invisible string" was released in 2020.

Now, it seems Taylor is thick as thieves with Joe's ex wife. Another good thing to come from this relationship? Taylor met Selena Gomez on a double date with the JoBros in 2008, per PEOPLE, and now they're besties!

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2009: Taylor Lautner

Taylor met Twilight star Taylor Lautner on the set of Valentine’s Day. They reportedly dated between August and December 2009. Lautner later told Entertainment Tonight that, “It was a good time. It was a fun few months there...”

Years later, Lea Michele and John Stamos later grilled Lautner about the romance on Facebook Live and he had nothing but great things to say about his ex. “It's like, Taylor's the nicest,” he said in 2016.

Taylor Swift pretty obviously wrote the single "Back To December” about her ex, apologizing for a rough night and seemingly regretting the breakup. "I miss your tan skin, your sweet smile," she wrote, along with, "It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you," and "wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine."

Fans think one Midnights song might be Taylor-inspired, too. "Midnight Rain" details the singer's break-up with someone who didn't really deserve it, and who later ends up with someone else. Lautner married Taylor Dome in 2022.

"I broke his heart 'cause he was nice," Taylor sings in "Midnight Rain," and later, "He wanted a bride I was making my own name, chasing that fame / He stayed the same / All of me changed like midnight rain."

Taylor also seems on very good terms with this ex, as he appeared in the "I Can See You (Taylor's Version)"music video, and has attended several shows of The Eras Tour, and the film. TBH, Taylor Lautner may be his ex-girlfriend's number one fan.

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2010: John Mayer

2010 was a rough year for Taylor romantically. John and Taylor got together in summer 2010 and dated for a few months, but it didn’t end well. Taylor later implied that John could have been a lot nicer to her in a song titled “Dear John.”

"Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? / The girl in the dress cried the whole way home. I should've known,” she wrote in the lyrics.

John later told Rolling Stone in 2012 that Taylor’s song “humiliated” him, and hasn't publicly spoken very kindly about Taylor since.

“I never got an e-mail. I never got a phone call,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was really caught off-guard, and it really humiliated me at a time when I’d already been dressed down. I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?”

John later released a diss track of his own in 2013, "Paper Doll"which includes the lyrics "You're like 22 girls in one / And none of them know what they're running from / Was it just too far to fall for a little paper doll?"

He's never admitted forthright that the song is about Taylor, but the "22"seems pretty telling to me.

Taylor got the last laugh, though. In 2022, she released the bonus track “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” on her new album Midnights, and it rehashes what went down between the two singers way back when, Page Six reported.

“At 19, and the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven/ And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts/ Memories feel like weapons/ And now that I know, I wish you left me wondering,” the now 33-year-old musician sings. Taylor even says in the song's most devastating lyric: "Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first."

In response to the new song, Swifties turned to Twitter to call John Mayer out for how he treated her. “John Mayer, be scared,” tweeted one user. "John mayer you better start running,” wrote another, per Page Six.

However, Taylor seems to have made some type of amends with John. At an Eras Tour concert in June 2023, she told her fans to refrain from attacking John on the Internet in anticipation for Speak Now (Taylor's Version)'s release. "I’m 33 years old, I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote," she said, per CNN.

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2010-2011: Jake Gyllenhaal

If you're a dedicated Swiftie, you already know where this is going. Fans were surprised when Taylor was spotted strolling through the streets of Brooklyn with her arm around Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010. A source told Us Weekly that “it’s definitely serious.”

Sadly, their relationship took a pretty bad turn and they broke up by January 2011, per US Weekly. Taylor penned quite a few songs about Gyllenhaal, and he's seemingly the muse behind her most devastating album, Red, which includes tracks like "The Last Time," "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," and "All Too Well."

"'All Too Well' was the hardest to write because it took me a long time to filter through everything I wanted to say," Taylor told Good Morning America in 2010. "It started out being a 10-minute song, which you can't put on an album. I had to filter it down to a story that could work in the form of a song."

However, Taylor rerecorded the Red album and released the full 10-minute song with never-before-heard lyrics that further hinted at her fall-out with Jake, per The Washington Post.

"All Too Well (10 Minute Version)(Taylor's Version)"includes a paired music video (or short film) starring Stranger Things'Sadie Sink and it details exactly how Taylor felt about this tumultuous relationship.

Taylor also revealed some details of the pair's relationship to the press back when she was promoting Red for the first time: In 2012, Taylor told NPR that Jake was an "unreliable guy" but she's since let her work speak for itself.

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2012: Conor Kennedy

Taylor dated 18-year-old Conor Kennedy for several months in 2012 (she was 23 at the time), and clearly she won over his legendary family. Conor’s grandmother Ethel Kennedy later told People that Taylor “is just spectacular. She’s just sensational inside and out.”

A source told People that Taylor was “head over heels into” Conor, adding, “[She] is on cloud nine...She thinks she is in love.”

Taylor even bought a $4.9 million house in Cape Cod to be closer to Conor and his family, the New York Daily News reported. (She eventually sold the property just three months later, per The Cape Cod Times.) Sources told Us Weekly that it ended amicably in October 2012. "It was just a distance thing. No hard feelings. They're fine," one source said.

Taylor later penned Red's "Starlight"based on stories she heard from the Kennedy family, but it doesn't seem like her relationship with Conor left any lasting impressions—at least in the songwriting department.

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2012-2013: Harry Styles

The photos from Taylor and Harry's Central Park stroll will go down in history as the hipster moment. Taylor and Harry dated very briefly in late 2012–early 2013. The infamous photos were released on December 2, 2012, per E! News.

Even Harry has the day burned in his memory. “When I see photos from that day I think: Relationships are hard, at any age. And adding in that you don’t really understand exactly how it works when you’re 18, trying to navigate all that stuff didn’t make it easier,” Harry later told Rolling Stone in 2017. "I mean, you’re a little bit awkward to begin with. You’re on a date with someone you really like. It should be that simple, right? It was a learning experience for sure. But at the heart of it–I just wanted it to be a normal date.”

Although the relationship ended on rocky terms (Taylor may or may not have called Harry out at the 2013 VMAs), it seems Harry and Taylor now get along quite well. Women's Health even discussed it with an expert. They regularly meet up at awards shows, and Taylor even gave Harry a standing ovation when he won Album of The Year at the Grammys in March 2023. Taylor's 1989 album is riddled with details from this iconic fling—most particularly the (sort of) name-dropping "Style" and "Out Of The Woods." And the vault tracks are even more detailed...

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The '1989' vault tracks appear to be about Harry Styles.

When Taylor first announced 1989 (Taylor's Version), she claimed the now-released vault tracks are "insane," and she couldn't have been more accurate. The five extra tracks on Taylor's latest rerecording seem to pretty concretely call out her past relationship to Harry Styles.

For example, in "Is It Over Now?"Taylor sings the lyrics: "Red blood, white snow / Blue dress on a boat." While dating the One Direction heartthrob, Taylor was spotted literally in a blue dress on a boat after a suspected break up (or at least a fight) with Harry in January 2013, per E! News.

And again, in "Now That We Don't Talk," Taylor admits, "I don't have to pretend I like acid rock / Or that I like to be on a mega yacht," which again seems to reference her time with Harry (the singer is known for his admiration for acid rock, as well as spending time on yachts). Taylor also references a past love who "grew their hair long," and Harry notably grew out his hair between 2013 and 2016.

Perhaps even more covertly, Taylor's references a star crossed affair between two successful people in "Suburban Legends," and references their "mismatched star signs," (Taylor and Harry's astro compatibility isn't exactly perfect). In "Slut!"Taylor sings "Everyone wants him, that was my crime / The wrong place at the right time," which seems to allude to the One Direction hysteria between 2012 and 2013.

And finally, in "Say Don't Go," Taylor could be referencing Harry's unreleased solo track "Don't Let Me Go," which was leaked around 2013, according to Genius.

Of course, this is all speculation—and Taylor is allowed to take creative liberties whenever she wants. Especially when the songs are this good! Plus, despite these songs, it seems she and Harry are on friendly terms now.

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2015-2016: Calvin Harris

Taylor and the British DJ reportedly met through mutual friend Ellie Goulding in 2015 at The Brit Awards and hit it off. They dated for about a year before breaking up in 2016.

After their split, it was revealed that Taylor had actually ghost written Harris' hit “This Is What You Came For” and there was a lot of back and forth about why she wasn’t credited properly.

Harris later fired back on Twitter, writing “I wrote the music, produced the song, arranged it and cut the vocals though. And initially [Swift] wanted it kept secret, hence the pseudonym.”

And in a now-deleted tweet Harris took a jab at Taylor with, “I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy [Perry] ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it.”

Taylor later referenced Harris in her "Look What You Made Me Do" video—she crawls out of a graveyard next to a headstone that reads "Nils Sjoberg," which was the fake name she used for “This Is What You Came For” songwriting credits. It doesn't seem like Taylor has ever written a song about this romance, at least in specificity.

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2016: Tom Hiddleston

Emphasis on briefly, but this relationship was a cultural moment in the summer of 2016. Taylor had her short-lived bleached hair, and Tom wore that infamous “I <3 TS” T-shirt, which was later referenced in Taylor's "Look What You Made Me Do"music video.

The pair reportedly first linked up at the Met Gala in 2016, when they were filmed dancing. This relationship may have inspired Taylor's songs "High Infidelity"(as this relationship somewhat overlapped with her relationship with Calvin Harris) and "Getaway Car"(as Taylor started dating Joe Alwyn pretty soon after breaking things off with Tom).

In fact, the "Getaway Car" lyrics spell out just why things ended between them: "With three of us, honey it's a sideshow / And a circus ain't a love story, and now we're both sorry (we're both sorry)"

"Taylor felt he wanted to take the relationship to be too public," a source told E! News at the time of their split, "and she was not happy about it, and thought it was too much publicity."

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2017-2023: Joe Alwyn

Taylor and Joe's breakup in April 2023 was pretty shocking at first. Throughout their six-year relationship, Taylor released several songs that were subtly about Joe, including Lover's "Cornelia Street," which paid homage to the New York City rental that Taylor was living in when she began dating Joe. Fans were quick to memorialize the spot after the split went public, per Vulture, leaving flowers outside (although Swift has not lived there in many years).

The relationship seemed so formidable because Joe was given credit for co-writing several of Taylor's songs under the pseudonym William Bowery, including "Sweet Nothing," "exile," and "betty." He even won a Grammy for Taylor's album folklore.

Joe, who confirmed he used the pseudonym on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2022, said: "We chose to do it so the people first and foremost would listen to the music first before dissecting the fact that we did it together.”

While neither partner ever formally confirmed the breakup, Taylor subtly deleted an Instagram reel that detailed some parts of her relationship with Alwyn just before Midnights dropped. Plus: She switched out "invisible string," a song pretty clearly about Joe, with "the 1," a song about a break up, on The Eras setlist.

Joe has always remained mum about his relationship, but fans did look for clues in an Instagram post he made for the first time since the pair's alleged break up in September 2023.

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Summer 2023: Matty Healy

A new "London Boy" entered Taylor's life shortly after her public breakup with Joe Alwyn. Matty Healy, the frontman for The 1975, was apparently dating Tay, according to reports first broken by The Sun between May and June 2023.

The Brit was spotted at the Nashville leg of The Eras Tour (and was even filmed jamming out to songs). He also performed with Phoebe Bridgers during her opening set. Matty and Taylor had been hinting at a potential romance brewing for a while. At a 1975 show in Manila on May 3, Matty mouthed "This is about you, you know who you are. I love you," before the band played their hit "About You." Two days later, just before she sang her song "cardigan," Taylor mouthed the exact same line, word for word.

The 1975 frontman and Taylor officially called it quits in the summer of 2023 after a very short time together, per TMZ.

Despite having hung out with Taylor's dad, double-dating with Jack Antonoff (who set them up) and Margaret Qualley, and sneaking into her NYC pad, the duo wasn't meant to last.

"She had fun with him, but it was always casual," the source told People in June. "They are no longer romantically involved."

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September 2023: Travis Kelce

TBH, Travis Kelce may be a bigger "Mastermind" than Taylor herself. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end first tried shooting his shot with Taylor during her Kansas City leg of the Eras Tour, per an episode of the New Heights podcast. Then, the NFL player invited her to his game, and she showed up, a source told PEOPLE. And now, she's changing lyrics to songs for him!

ICYMI: Travis said he invited Taylor to his game on the Pat McAffee show on September 21, 2023. "I threw the ball into her court and said, 'I've seen you rock the stage in Arrowhead, you might have to see me rock the stage in Arrowhead and see which one is a little more lit,'" Travis said on the broadcast.

After the game, the pair were spotted leaving the stadium together—in a convertible! Plus, Travis' post-game 'fit was reportedly called a '1989 Bedroom Painting' denim set, and was reminiscent of Taylor's 1989 album colors. Everyone loves a supportive king!

After the game, fans reported Taylor paid for every meal in a Kansas City restaurant, so the patrons would leave and she and Travis could dine privately, the Daily Mail reported.

Since that fateful Sept. 24 debut, the pair have been out and about a few times—including making cameos on Saturday Night Live's Season 49 premiere. Plus, Taylor has attended several Chiefs games. And Travis most recently attended The Eras Tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He stood in the VIP tent next to Taylor's dad for most of the evening.

Oh, and Taylor performed "End Game"as one of her surprise songs during the show Travis was attending, which is all about a couple with big reputations who would be a big conversation...which is obviously Taylor and Travis these days.

In addition to Taylor debuting some of her newest tracks from 1989 (Taylor's Version) during the surprise song set, she even gave Travis a *major* shoutout during a very interesting lyric change in the show's finale, "Karma." In the song's final verse, the pop star switched some of the lyrics from "Karma is the guy on the screen coming straight home to me," to "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me." Add that to a fan video showing the cutest post-show kiss of all time, and you've got yourself all the makings of a rock-solid romance.

Plus, Travis and Taylor even have *adorable* nicknames for each other. On a recent episode of New Heights, Travis thanked Taylor for supporting him by liking a photo announcing Travis became the fastest (and only) tight end to reach 11,000 receiving yards. "Thanks Tay, I appreciate you," he said.

And Taylor recently dropped his nickname at his game on December 4. "Come on, Trav!," she was seen yelling from her box. Tay and Trav forever, indeed!

No songs quite yet for this football star, but I just know they'll be amazing when she drops them. And I hope this "Karma" lyric change makes an appearance again soon!

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