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It’s a ubiquitous notion held within Hollywood that “six degrees” separate you from the next celebrity. When it comes to the dating pool, it’s understood that irrespective of who you date, you’ll always have a mutual friend.
This proves beneficial when well-connected A-listers require a little assistance from their companions to play matchmaker. Such was the case of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
The Kansas City Chiefs tight end revealed in an interview earlier this week that he had someone “playing Cupid” for the pair. The story allegedly goes that Swift and Kelce’s mutual friend encouraged the musician to give him a shot.
Following Kelce’s failed attempts to pass on a friendship bracelet with his phone number to Swift after her Eras Tour show at Arrowhead Stadium, Swift reached out to him directly after their mutual contact persuaded her.
Of course, given the public interest surrounding their burgeoning romance, it was only a matter of days until netizens settled on the culprit who brought the pair together: Jason Sudeikis.
Though the recently separated comedian hasn’t confirmed or denied the rumours, he has spoken out about Swift and Kelce’s relationship, revealing that he “doesn’t blame” Swift for wanting to spend time with the football star. But did the actor really (ted) lasso the zeitgeist’s favourite couple?
Ahead, the “invisible strings” connecting Sudeikis to Swift and Kelce, including all the plausible evidence convincing us that he did indeed broker this relationship.
Travis Kelce Confirms Someone Set Him And Taylor Swift Up
For the uninitiated, or those wondering how Kelce and Swift’s “Love Story’ began, the athlete revealed that an anonymous shared connection helped bring the two together.
“There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: ‘Yo! Did you know he was coming?’” Kelce explained to WSJ. “I had somebody playing Cupid.”
Kelce added that Swift got in touch with him directly afterwards, though whether this was before or after he addressed his attendance at the Eras Tour on his podcast, New Heights, is unsure. “She [Swift] told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out,” he added.
Kecle and Swift connected for the first time in person in New York. “When I met her in New York, we had already kind of been talking, so I knew we could have a nice dinner and, like, a conversation, and what goes from there will go from there,” he said.
The couple later chose New York as the location to take their relationship public for the first time, with the pair pictured holding hands as they attended the Saturday Night Lives after-party together.
Jason Sudeikis Thanked Taylor Swift For Stopping In Kansas City During Eras Tour
With Sudeikis counting Kansas City as his “hometown”, the actor weighed in on how grateful he was for Swift bringing the Eras Tour to the midwest state of Missouri.
“I was thankful to Taylor, just hanging out, coming to do two nights of shows here,” he explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “Little did I know, just a few months later, she’d be our adopted daughter,” he added, poking fun at her newfound allegiance to the city.
Jason Sudeikis Calls Travis Kelce A “Good Egg” And Throws His Support Behind The Couple
Later in the interview, Sudeikis threw his support behind the pair, noting that he understands her interest in wanting to spend time in Kansas City. “I don’t blame her for wanting to hang out here more, I don’t blame her for wanting to hang out with Travis. He’s a good egg.”
The timing of Sudeikis’ comments is what immediately piqued the interest of internet sleuths. Of course, his remarks on Swift and Kelce are not only conveniently timed to Kelce’s confirmation of a “cupid”. But, it also comes after his former fiancée, Olivia Wilde, came under fire for commenting on “Traylor”.
Wilde, who most recently dated Swift’s ex-boyfriend, Harry Styles, shared a Tweet to her Instagram stories reading, “I wish Taylor Swift was in love with a climate scientist”. The actress-turned-director received backlash for the seeming hypocrisy of wishing a pop star would date someone more central to the climate crisis after dating one herself.
“Who is Olivia Wilde to say sh*t,” wrote one user on X (formerly known as Twitter). “I don’t remember Harry Styles restoring the ozone when they were dating.”
Of course, given the messy public breakup between Sudeikis and Wilde, his comments could also be read as an attempt to rehabilitate his image in a favourable light after the damning exposé from his and Wilde’s former nanny.
Taylor Swift And Jason Sudeikis Pictured Together In New York Days After Kansas City Show
The most convincing piece of evidence that Sudeikis orchestrated Swift and Kelce’s romance came courtesy of a candid picture of the pair.
In the days following Swift’s show in Kansas City, Sudeikis and Swift were snapped together at the birthday party for musician Questlove in New York.
A few days after this now-public interaction, Kelce was spotted in New York attending one of Swift’s favourite clubs, though Kelce and Swift weren’t in the same venue together until her appearance at his football game on September 24.
Taylor Swift And Jason Sudeikis Have Known Each Other Since 2009
The final piece of the puzzle placing Sudeikis front and centre in Swift and Kelce’s romance is the fact that he and the Grammy Award winner have known each other for over a decade.
Swift met Sudeikis on the set of SNL back in 2009 when she made her hosting debut for the show. SNL has since played a pivotal role in the anthology of Swift and Kelce’s relationship. If we were to connect the invisible strings tethering the duo, it could be said that if Swift never performed on the show back in the noughties, then perhaps Swift and Kelce wouldn’t be together today.
