Donna Kelce, Travis Kelce‘s mom, is living out every Swiftie’s dream. But during an appearance on the Got It From My Momma podcast, she said it’s been a truly surreal experience to hang out with Taylor Swift weekly at Kansas City Chiefs games.
“I feel like I’m in an alternate universe, because it’s something I’ve never been involved with before,” Donna told the podcast’s host Jennifer Vickery Smith on Friday’s episode.
She added that she never imagined the media frenzy would continue for so long. “I thought it would be over at that point, but it seems to just continue,” Donna said, recalling Swift’s first appearance at a game on Sept. 24. “Every week just seems to trump the week before. So it’s really kind of wild, a wild ride.”
The NFL mom also addressed recent criticism that the NFL is spending too much time focused on Swift during the games, rather than on the players themselves. “All I can tell you is that the NFL is laughing all the way to the bank,” Donna said. “You know what I’m saying? Good for them. They’re getting the ramifications of everything.”
She noted that she finds it “pretty cool” that young Swift fans are getting into football because of the singer’s interest. “I can tell you this, that they’ve told me personally that the Kelce family has done more good PR for football than they could have paid a $1 million to a PR firm,” Donna confirmed.
Kelce himself addressed the Swift Effect this week on his own podcast, New Heights. During the episode the player admitted to his brother Jason Kelce that the NFL has been taking their coverage of Swift attending the team’s games a bit far.
“I think it’s fun when they show who all is at the game,” Kelce answered when Jason asked for his honest opinion on the coverage, separate from his feelings towards Swift. “I think it brings a little bit more to the atmosphere, brings a little bit more to what you’re watching. But at the same time, they’re overdoing it a little bit for sure… especially my situation. I think they’re trying to have fun with it.”
Swift’s presence at the games has also generated some backlash. Earlier this week, actress Rachel Zegler spoke up in defense of the singer after Dan Katz from Barstool Sports said on the Pardon My Take podcast that he would believe the relationship was real once he saw a sex tape.
“It’s not news that the media is particularly (and unwarrantedly) cruel to Taylor Swift but the way men feel entitled to speak about women, their bodies, and their sex lives needs to be seriously evaluated,” Zegler wrote in response on X (formerly Twitter). “You will never see people speaking this way about a man. That goes for a lot of different scenarios. We do not pick apart men’s attitudes and relationships the way we do women’s. And it’s not always just men who speak this way about us. Women can and do, too. It sucks. Leave Taylor Swift alone!”