Dear Gossips, 

We’ll get to Travis Kelce’s WSJ. Magazine feature later today but first I’m starting with his mother, Donna, because, if you recall, a couple of weeks ago there were all these rumours about how the Kelce family was “worried” about Travis’s relationship with Taylor and overwhelmed by the attention, which sounded like bullsh-t and we’ve addressed that several times already but just to put a final point on it…

 

The Kelce brothers, Jason and Travis, played against each other last night on Monday Night Football, the first time Philadelphia and Kansas City have faced off since the Super Bowl. Obviously a big night for the Kelce family. Ahead of the game, it was Donna who was featured on Good Morning America. 

 

I mean, if attention is a concern, you’re not saying yes to GMA, lol. And you will note from that piece, Donna’s getting hers too. Brand partnerships! SHE HAS HER OWN PAPA JOHN’s BUNDLE! They call it the “Mama Kelce Bundle”. Which means she was on GMA, probably, as a spokesperson for a pizza chain! So get the f-ck out of here with all that business a few weeks ago about the family having reservations about what a heatscore Taylor is. Everybody is scoring here – and I’m not saying that with any shade whatsoever. I’m all for Mama Kelce getting her bag. She’s a mother, she worked hard to raise those boys, so if this is her time and she’s doing it with their support (which by all accounts she is), more power to her. My only point here is to side-eye those rumours and where they could have come from. Because whoever was leaking that sh-t either didn’t know what they were talking about or they got played from the inside and failed the rat test. 

 

As for the parental b-plot of this rom-com, there was no meeting between the Kelces and the Swifts last night as we suspected yesterday – the optics of that happening after the tragic death of Ana Clara Benevides would have been terrible and, quite rightly, the decision was made to just stay focused on the work: in Travis’s case the game (in which he both scored a touchdown and fumbled in his team’s loss) and in Taylor’s case her third show in Rio de Janeiro last night. 

There are fans in Brasil who are disappointed with how Taylor and her team have handled the situation. I’ve been hearing from some of them who have been critical of the series of decisions that preceded Ana Clara Benevides’s collapse and the ones that have been made since, with Taylor not saying Ana’s name, and no support being given to Ana’s family. There’s also been speculation as to why Taylor hasn’t been more direct with her statements, and what might be going on behind the scenes legally and whether or not Taylor is putting business before people.

 

I’m not sure we can analyse this yet based on the limited amount of information that’s out there. For sure there are discussions about this happening behind the scenes. And there is no doubt that Taylor is well aware of what people are saying and all the takes on what she has or hasn’t done and what she has or hasn’t said. But if we’ve learned anything from studying her career over the last almost 20 years, her plans always, eventually, reveal themselves. If Taylor Swift is anything, she is thoughtful; she’s often performatively thoughtful. So there is thought happening here, for sure. Let’s wait a bit longer to see if and when whatever she’s been thinking about will be made public. 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey