Travis Kelce had just finished driving his interviewer around Kansas City in his customized Rolls Royce Ghost proving he was your ordinary all-American guy-next-door when the writer suddenly interjected.
Had Kelce really earlier pointed to the array of twinkling fiber-optic lights embedded in the car’s ceiling – a $20,000 extra in a nearly half-million-dollar vehicle – and told us to wish upon a shooting star because ‘dreams come true’?
Yes, Kelce replied, he really had.
Another interviewer might have burst out laughing – but not this one.
‘He’s not running from it,’ the fawning Wall Street Journal profile said of Kelce. ‘What’s more, it might just be true.’
The writer left unsaid exactly what dream that might be – but given the hunky tight end’s latest love interest, we hardly needed to be told.
Indeed, as he rhapsodized endlessly about how lucky he is to have been thrust into her orbit, our boy from suburban Cleveland made it crystal clear that he is open to becoming the first Mr Taylor Swift.
Travis Kelce had just finished driving his interviewer around Kansas City in his customized Rolls Royce proving he was your ordinary all-American guy-next-door when the writer suddenly interjected. Had Kelce really pointed to the array of twinkling fiber-optic lights embedded in the ceiling and told us to wish upon a shooting star because ‘dreams come true’?
Yes, Kelce replied, he really had. ‘He’s not running from it,’ the fawning Wall Street Journal profile said of Kelce. ‘What’s more, it might just be true.’ The writer left unsaid exactly what dream that might be – but given the hunky tight end’s newest love interest, we hardly needed to be told.
Indeed, as he rhapsodised endlessly about how lucky he is to have been thrust into her orbit, our boy from suburban Cleveland made it crystal clear that he is open to becoming the first Mr Taylor Swift.
One imagines, then, that Team Kelce appreciated this rather twee and romantic piece in the usually austere legacy newspaper. After all, the media hasn’t always been kind to the pop singer’s boyfriends.
There have been cruel suggestions that some of her past relationships have been closer to publicity stunts than affairs of the heart – or even that Swift, now worth $1 billion, sees men principally as fodder for her catchy breakup anthems.
So when the heartthrob Kansas City Chiefs star and the highest-grossing female performer ever were romantically linked in a very public relationship this summer, the PR teams behind both celebrities would naturally be anxious to maximize any positive media coverage.
If there was to be an interview, it had to be with someone who could prioritize sensitivity and empathy above all else.
Step forward velvet-gloved inquisitor JR Moehringer. Not a usual Journal contributor, but the man tasked with wringing out every last ounce of sympathy for Prince Harry when he ghosted the quarrelsome royal’s best-selling memoir Spare, published in January.
Then, Moehringer – who Harry said ‘spoke to me so often and with such deep conviction about the beauty (and sacred obligation) of Memoir’ – earned every last cent of his reported $1 million pay check.
But critics weren’t kind – in fact the Journal described the book as a ‘slog’.
Nonetheless, the Sussex seal of approval established Moehringer as the go-to media confidant for celebrities anxious to polish their halos.
How much he’s been paid, and by who, to turn his purple-prose talents to Travis Kelce isn’t clear. But whoever stumped up the cash surely knew what they could expect.
The end result is a pretentious gush-a-thon so gut-wrenchingly sycophantic that it prompted outraged WSJ readers to line up in the article’s comments section to complain.
Make no mistake – this is a puff piece par excellence in aid of a man who’s been thrust into a different league of celebrity and is not going to let the opportunity pass.
If there was to be an interview, it had to be with someone who could prioritize sensitivity and image above all else. Step forward velvet-gloved inquisitor JR Moehringer. Not a usual Journal contributor, but the man tasked with wringing out every last ounce of sympathy for Prince Harry when he ghosted the quarrelsome royal’s best-selling memoir Spare.
Kelce is 34, a year older than Swift but – more important – old for a professional football player in a sport where the average age is 26.
In the interview, he alludes to retirement – ‘he confesses that he thinks about it non-stop’ and ‘broods on life without football’.
How convenient, then, that this most high-profile of relationships has come now, in these twilight years of his career – not only providing a significant boost to his finances but also shoring up his post-football prospects.
And for Swift, too – perhaps the most famous woman in the world and hardly in need of more media attention – this hallmark-movie romance has nonetheless done much to sustain public hysteria surrounding her on-going worldwide stadium tour.
It won’t be lost on some readers that the Journal is a business-focused publication.
At times Moehringer’s piece reads more like an advertisement for future employment.
‘Sometimes he sees himself in a broadcasting booth. Sometimes his manager talks about action flicks. (Maybe a Marvel movie? Kelce’s already built like Wolverine),’ writes Moehringer obligingly, adding that on a salary of $14 million at the Chiefs, Kelce is ‘grossly underpaid’.
After all, that’s about the same as Swift reportedly makes from one night of ticket sales.
We’re told Kelce is even considering ‘doing some form of comedy… he haunts clubs, lives for open-mic nights, and he’s gotten to be friendly with several rising stand-ups.’
This all makes it rather difficult to believe Moehringer when he says Kelce – dressed here in $5,000 Loewe and $2,500 Ralph Lauren – doesn’t care much for money or that ‘the Chiefs know that he would play for free’.
It’s a claim made all the more perplexing when you consider the star’s recent rush to monetize his fame.
Endorsement deals with Nike, Bud Light, Pfizer, State Farm, Direct TV, Experian – to name a few – have likely been lucrative.
He also has a limited edition breakfast cereal ‘Kelce’s Krunch’ and the Chiefs this month announced a new clothing line designed by Travis himself.
Items on sale include a $120 grey hoodie emblazoned with a ‘TK’ logo.
All this no doubt helped finance the $6 million Kansas City mansion he recently purchased, complete with its own mini-golf course.
It is rather difficult to believe Moehringer when he says Kelce doesn’t care much for money or that ‘the Chiefs know that he would play for free’ – especially when you consider the star’s recent rush to monetize his fame. Lucrative endorsement deals this year with Nike, Bud Light, Pfizer, State Farm, Direct TV and Experian have likely rewarded him handsomely.
All this no doubt helped finance the $6 million Kansas City mansion he recently purchased, complete with its own mini-golf course.
Kelce also filed for five new trademarks last month – for his name and some of his ‘famous’ phrases, which apparently include ‘Alright Nah’.
For now at least, though, it seems Kelce is happy playing the role of Taylor’s beau.
‘He doesn’t need to be asked about Taylor; he mentions her unreservedly, lavishes praise on her, calls her ‘hilarious,’ ‘a genius,’ notes that they share compatible worldviews, especially when it comes to family and work,’ Moehringer writes, before Kelce adds: ‘Being around her, seeing how smart Taylor is, has been f***ing mind-blowing. I’m learning every day.’
His mother, Donna, is similarly smitten and sounds like she’s already choosing her hat for the wedding: ‘He’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time… God bless him, he shot for the stars!’
Kelce of course finds time to take Moehringer to a local charity for underprivileged children that he occasionally visits.
‘He likes people. Loves people,’ Moehringer raves, as they glide around town in a car costing more than many Kansas City residents earn in a decade, fans swamping the Rolls.
Even academics are starry-eyed: Brian Donovan, a University of Kansas professor who teaches a seminar titled ‘The Sociology of Taylor Swift’, describes the romance as ‘a pure unalloyed moment of joy’ in an increasingly unhappy and divided world.
And, Moehringer says, this is more than just a hardy sports star. He has a deeply sensitive side, too.
Moments after raising Kelce’s ‘tight-knit crew’ of old friends, ‘suddenly, his cornflower-blue eyes, which normally twinkle, start to glisten… Now come the tears. Big sloppy ones.’
And, Moehringer says, this is more than just a hardy sports star. He has a deeply sensitive side, too. Moments after raising Kelce’s ‘tight-knit crew’ of old friends, ‘suddenly, his cornflower-blue eyes, which normally twinkle, start to glisten… Now come the tears. Big sloppy ones.’
There’s no mention of his rather less sensitive college days when he would post tweets complaining about ‘ugly’ cheerleaders and asking: ‘Why can’t girls hide they [sic] back fat?’
Nor did Moehringer ask about the 2016 interview in which Kelce said that if a partner didn’t like to give oral sex it would be a ‘dealbreaker’.
The front page of the Journal’s magazine reads, ‘Travis Kelce Plays For Keeps’. If so, Swift’s history of short-lived relationships suggests they may not be so well matched after all.
In the meantime, we must hope Travis Kelce gets that stand-up comedy gig and doesn’t end up providing another punchline in a smash-hit breakup song.