Travis Kelce’s father, Ed Kelce, wasted no time yesterday after Taylor and Travis’s joint announcement on Instagram confirming their engagement. Ed did an interview with a local Cleveland news station providing answers to some of the pressing questions about the proposal. Cleveland of course is the Kelces’ hometown. And, clearly, Ed has maintained relationships with hometown media, which is why this is the most heat News5 Cleveland has ever had. 

 

The big takeaway is that the proposal happened a couple of weeks ago or so at Travis’s home in Missouri and etc etc etc. The reporter, John Kosich, has posted videos of the key parts of the interview on his Twitter. The funniest part, at least to me, is when Ed says that Taylor was “getting maybe a little antsy” which, according to Ed, prompted Travis to push up the proposal because he had actually wanted to do it this week. 

We are grateful to Ed for his IDGAF energy and his choice of words. Describing Taylor as “antsy” about when the proposal might be coming is probably not the image that Tree Paine would have wanted out there, LOL forever. 

 

Still, even though Ed obviously didn’t read his media training handbook, his unscripted remarks do serve another purpose. Because of course the image that TNT have very much tried to reinforce about their relationship is that even though she is one of the most famous people on the planet, and basically her own metaverse, and by extension Travis’s status as a celebrity too has risen by association, these are just two down-home people who are down bad for each other. Ed’s candour, via interview from his laptop with a local station, only adds to that appeal. 

 

I also can’t imagine that Tree is all that fussed about Ed spilling all this tea and therefore shutting down any opportunity for media outlets to publish co-called “source” comments about when the proposal happened and where and who knew and all the reporting that would have been everywhere today had Travis’s dad not beat them to it. He’s taken away at least a week of make-a-stories about the engagement, forcing media outlets to chase other angles. 

And now he’s become the “go-to” for TNT gossip, haha. This tweet cracked me up but it’s also accurate. 

 

Going back to the timing, though, and what Ed said about Travis initially intending to do it this week… 

A new post showed up on Travis’s IG this morning to announce his collaboration with American Eagle. Just two weeks after their mess with Sydney Sweeney, resulting in a decline in foot traffic at retail, the brand had this in their back pocket. 

 

Some cynics are now suspicious about following up on the engagement news with the sponcon. Did they choose yesterday for the engagement announcement to pump up interest in Travis’s new brand deal? 

Ed’s reveal gives more context. Travis’s partnership with American Eagle would have been in play months ago, and his hair in the ad is still long so they obviously shot it before he proposed. The campaign, then, would have had a set timeline for launch – and this week makes sense since it’s right before Labour Day, when people in North America hit the malls; it is traditionally a pretty popular weekend for shopping. 

If Travis’s original plan was to propose this week, after the AE campaign had set sail, in theory he and Taylor would still be keeping it a secret for a couple of weeks, and maybe she’d wave the ring around at her first appearance at one of his games when the NFL season begins. 

 

But given that she was getting “antsy” and the proposal came earlier, they ran into timing conflicts with the sponcon. And since the proposal happened two weeks ago, perhaps they knew that they couldn’t keep it contained much longer and went ahead with the announcement of their engagement on the Tuesday before Labour Day weekend, when people haven’t yet checked out mentally yet. 

I’m not usually this uncynical, and I probably would be more inline with the cynics, had it not been for Ed Kelce out here doing the work of the spokesperson. Put him on the payroll! 

Photo credits: Chad Salvador/ Picture Group for Tubi/ Shutterstock

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