In the midst of the media’s never-ending play-by-play of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s romance, some Swifties have uncovered the NFL star’s old tweets—and they don’t like what they see.
Online sleuths dug up Kelce’s ableist, misogynistic, and fat-shaming posts from 2010 and 2011, apparently prompting the Kansas City Chiefs tight end—or someone in his camp—to embark on a deletion spree this week. The receipts, however, were documented on X (formerly known as Twitter) and gossip subreddit r/FauxMoi.
“As a man, You have something wrong with you if your going for girls that weigh more then you!!” Kelce, 34, wrote in one 13-year-old tweet.
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Another reads: “haha when fat people fall, its like slow motion entertainment, cuz they never JUST fall, they always tumble n gradually hit the deck #comedy.”
Kelce is also catching heat for using a slur referring to a person with an intellectual disability. In a 2011 reply to one user, Kelce posted, “they slow as hell cuz there parents have been talkin to them like they were re**rded since they were babies.”
“I feel like if u wanna be a cheerleader you have to pass a beauty test.... there’s too many ugly cheerleaders out here smh,” he also wrote that year.
Kelce sounded off on “ugly” women on several occasions.
“damn the clippers girls gotta be the shitty girls that dont make the lakers girls team, cuz they all was ugly,” he tweeted in 2010, following up a month later with, "i gotta get outta here, its too weak!!! im getting attacked by ugly girls."
Gaylors, a Swiftie subset who believe the songstress is secretly queer, and Kaylors, those who theorize she was romantically involved with former bestie Karlie Kloss, have been particularly vocal about Kelce’s problematic takes.
One X user shared, “I LOVE THIS GAME,” on Tuesday night while quoting a choice Kelce tweet musing: “hahaha why cant girls hide they backfat? that shits nasty!!!”
“3 cheers for toxic masculinity,” another posted with a face-vomiting emoji.
“Travis kelce is being defended a little too much considering some of his old tweets are ableist send tweet,” a third observer wrote.
“@taylorswift13 this your man?” another user tweeted while quoting his “#comedy” post.
The Daily Beast left messages for Kelce’s rep.
Meanwhile, other Swift stans are taking a shine to Kelce’s aged posts, including one from 2011 where he misspelled the word squirrel.
“I just gave a squirle a peice of bread and it straight smashed all of it!!!! I had no idea they ate bread like that!! Haha #crazy,” Kelce wrote.
This newly viral tweet and others rife with misspellings seem to be capturing more headlines than his ancient sexist drivel. (See: Buzzfeed’s “Taylor Swift Fans Have Found Travis Kelce's Old Tweets, And They Are Hilariously Unproblematic” and UPROXX’s “Taylor Swift Fans Found Travis Kelce's Old Tweets, And They're… Surprisingly Wholesome.”
“travis kelce stop deleting ur old tweets they’re bangers,” one user wrote.
Others were quick to defend—or brush off—Kelce’s unseemly dispatches.
“yall can repost and look at travis’ old tweets all you want.. but that doesn’t make it his truth now,” one Kelce defender fumed on X. “Do some research on travis kelce 10 years ago to now. If we’re gonna bring up his old tweets let’s celebrate the fucking character development this man has had.”
“Boy howdy, I am shocked that a 20-21 year-old athlete from Ohio wasn’t the most enlightened young man online in 2010,” a Redditor quipped.
“I don’t think any of us were enlightened online in 2010,” someone replied. “It was a wild time.”
“Speak for yourself. In 2010 I certainly wasn’t using slurs about disabled people,” another user chimed in.
These aren’t the only Kelce comments to resurface as his relationship with the 33-year-old “Shake It Off” hitmaker continues to blossom.
In a 2016 appearance on Bravo host Andy Cohen’s talk show, Kelce commented on his dating “dealbreakers,” including his thoughts on seeing a woman who “doesn’t like to give oral sex.” He replied, “Sounds like a dealbreaker to me.” As Page Six reported, he also signaled it was a problem if someone didn’t sleep with him by the third date.
On his podcast with his brother in February, Kelce made jokes about starting a family of his own, saying he needed to “find a breeder.”
“I gotta start breeding. I’ve gotta start breeding, to all the breeders out there,” Kelce said, to which his mother Donna replied, “Wait until you find the right person. Find the right person.”
“I’m gonna find a breeder,” Kelce continued, “and I’m gonna get kids so that mom can love me again.”
Those statements continue to foment pushback.
“Everyone loving Travis Kelce right now, but are we forgetting that he called woman breeders and when he said a dealbreaker for him was a woman not sleeping with him after the third date…?” one X user posted this week.
Some critics compared Kelce to Swift’s British actor ex.
“Forever grateful that Joe Alwyn kept to himself and is private,” they said. “It’s what makes Travis Kelce’s statements from earlier this year about ‘finding a breeder’ cringe.
“You are free to say what you want but are not free from the consequences of doing so. Women are not objects.”
