Sports broadcaster Kayla Nicole, whom Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce dated before moving on to Taylor Swift, has a lot to say about their relationship and its aftermath on a new episode of WNBA star Angel Reese’s podcast, Unapologetically Angel.
One of the most difficult parts of being Kelce’s ex, Nicole said, is the “hate” she experiences from Swifties who continue to stalk her Instagram page and “debate” her “worth” under every post.
“You could go to my most recent post and it will be people debating each other [about] why I am worthless and I’ll never be a talented person and I have no career,” she said. “I would be lying if I said that that level of hate and online chaos [doesn’t impact me].”
While she agreed it’s undesirable to be targeted, Nicole chalked the comments up to the toxic fame of her ex’s new relationship. “It has nothing to do with me,” she said, “There’s something about that level of fame that attracts crazy people. And it’s unfortunate because I’ve never done anything to warrant that kind of backlash.”
Nicole also took the opportunity to address a stubborn rumor about their breakup. “They were saying that you said he was cheap or that you were splitting the bills [50-50],” Reese pointed out to Nicole on the show.
“Do I look like I would go 50-50 on bills?” Nicole asked in response. “That was ridiculous. But he addressed that too though. I don’t even know how people, why that even became a thing,” she continued. “That was never an issue in our relationship, but it was definitely a rumor around the internet.”
The couple, who were on and off again over the course of their five-year relationship, broke up once in 2022, at which point Kelce shot down a rumor that his cheating led to the breakup.
He posted to Twitter, “This is fake news” and “not why Kayla and I broke up.” It was the second and final time the couple broke up that led to a Barstool report blaming the breakup on his making Nicole go halfsies on everything. Nicole denied that “very false” report before speaking on it via her podcast: “We were in a relationship for five years. A hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there, wasn’t even thought about,” she said then.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at the men’s final of the 2024 US Open Tennis Championships on Sept. 8, 2024, in New York City.
Gotham/GC Images
Later, Nicole addressed how her relationships with the wives and girlfriends of other Chiefs players have changed, including quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ wife Brittany Mahomes, with whom she spent time while dating Kelce. Mahomes has since been hanging out with Swift at Chiefs games, and dubbed Swift’s “bestie” by the press—giving the impression the couple has essentially replaced Nicole with Swift. Nicole couldn’t help but laugh when asked whether her friendships with Chiefs players’ wives and girlfriends were still intact.
“I feel so calm and comfortable and then it’s like—” Nicole said in response to the line of questioning, apparently stumped with how to answer. “We were cool. We are not as cool as we were before [her breakup with Kelce],” she said. “That was like family,” she added, and admitted the change in those friendships was “hard.”
Travis Kelce and then girlfriend Kayla Nicole share a moment as they arrive at the NFL Honors show at the YouTube Theater on Feb. 10, 2022, in Inglewood, California.
Michael Owens/Getty Images
Though the couple called it quits, there’s no bad blood between them. “He’s a great guy [and] that was a good time in my life,” she said. However, if she saw him out and about, she’d have to acknowledge him with just a “head nod,” because of his new relationship. “We’ve seen each other in public spaces, but I think that we’re both aware of the nature of his new situation [with Swift]. There’s just no room really for us to communicate or acknowledge each other publicly without it being spun into something crazy, so we just keep it moving.”
For now, she said she’s focused on her career as a sportscaster, but opined that even that causes her to be continually linked with her ex. She recently made headlines for even mentioning Kelce, even though it’s her job to cover football.
“To think that I’m not gonna talk about the number one team in the NFL, with the best quarterback and the best tight end [is unrealistic],” she said. “That’s gonna come with the territory. They’re gonna have to get over it.”
