A former University of Cincinnati Bearcats football player (and, okay, okay, also tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs) is marrying one of the biggest superstars of all time.
The Grammy Award-winning Taylor Swift and multi-Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce announced their engagement on social media today, making an otherwise very average Tuesday something much sparklier for Cincinnati swifties.
“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” Swift posted on Instagram, tagging the post with her song “So High School,” which is very much about her romance with Kelce. The post features several engagement photos in a fairytale-esque garden, including one of Travis on bended knee and another that’s a close-up of the diamond ring — an Old Mine Brilliant Cut designed by Artifex Fine Jewelry’s Kindred Lubeck, according to E! News. As of this writing, the post has garnered over 13 million likes.
America’s sweetheart Taylor and Ohio boy Travis started dating in 2023. According to the couple, that summer, Kelce attempted to give her his phone number via friendship bracelet during her Eras Tour stop at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City that July. After that didn’t work, Kelce talked about the attempt on his and his brother Jason Kelce’s podcast, New Heights.
“I was disappointed that she doesn’t talk before or after her shows because she has to save her voice for the 44 songs that she sings,” Travis said. “So I was a little butt-hurt I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her. 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…. She doesn’t meet anybody—or at least she didn’t want to meet me, so I took it personal,” Travis said in the July 26, 2023 episode.
While the friendship bracelet didn’t catch Taylor’s attention at first, that podcast episode did.
“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Taylor told TIME when she appeared in the December 2023 “Person of the Year” issue. “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.”
While the world celebrates the engagement, Travis’ college alma mater wants to remind everyone he (and now by extension, Taylor) are “Bearcats for Life.”
“It’s a (Bearcat) love story. Taylor just said yes! Congrats,” UC shared in an Instagram post Tuesday. Travis played for the Bearcats as a tight end from 2008 to 2012.
This article appears in Aug 20 – Sep 2, 2025.