Fans got confirmation of Taylor Swift's relationship with Travis Kelce when she attended a Kansas City Chiefs game in September 2023. But while Swifties were snooping for information in the lead-up, it turns out that one pretty unexpected person had his own confirmation long before. As reported by People, on a recent episode of The Social Game, The Challenge star Wes Bergmann shared that he knew Swift and Kelce were dating because he lives next door to the NFL player.
"I was, like, the first person to know about any of this stuff, and I tried to tell this woman a long time ago," Bergmann said, referring to co-host and fellow Challenge competitor Michele Fitzgerald. "'They are together, just so you know.' She didn't believe it. She was like, 'She only goes for artists.' I beat the validating of her showing up to games and stuff by, like, six months."
Fitzgerald explained that she thought Swift was always interested in "a brooding artist" that is "a bit scrawnier" and "kind of, like, womanizers." (Prior to Kelce, Swift was rumored to be dating The 1975 singer Matty Healy; before that she was in a six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn. So, you know, apply Fitzgerald's descriptions as you like.) On the other hand, Fitzgerald sees Kelce as "chivalrous" and "an all-American football player."
Bergmann—who said paparazzi once photographed him thinking he was Kelce—added, "To me he’s the boy next door." The Traitors star also said that his neighbor in the Kansas City gated community is "an enigma. On one hand, he's like this big, tough football player. On the other, he's probably going to have, like, 12 Taylor Swift songs written about him."
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce—seen here in December 2024—began dating in the summer of 2023.
While Bergmann said he knew about Swift and Kelce "six months" before they got together, it seems like that's an exaggeration. In an December 2023 interview with Time, Swift explained that she was with Kelce for only a couple of months before she attended that first Chiefs game.
"This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell. We started hanging out right after that," the "Karma" singer shared. "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."
Kelce talked about being interested in Swift on his podcast, New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce in July 2023. He said that he had hoped to talk to her when he attended one of her concerts, but didn't get the chance to.
"If you’re up on Taylor Swift concerts, there are friendship bracelets, and I received a bunch of them being there, but I wanted to give Taylor Swift one with my number on it," Kelce told his co-host and brother.
In the Time interview, Swift said that she and Kelce were very much official by September. "By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple," she said. "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."