How Travis Kelce's On-And-Off Relationship With Ex Kayla Nicole Began

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is in a hugely high-profile relationship with superstar Taylor Swift, but before that, he was romantically involved with sports reporter and fashion influencer Kayla Nicole. Like celebrity couples Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas and Dua Lipa and Anwar Hadid, Kelce and Nicole's on-and-off-again, five-year relationship started thanks to Instagram DMs— also like those celebrity couples, the two have split since their DM meet-cutes.

In an Instagram Stories post in October 2017, captured by TMZ, Nicole explained how she and Kelce first ended up getting together: "He had been following me and insta-flirting for a few months. All double taps and no dm. Soooo after a little liquid courage and a pep talk from @iqueenb (something along the lines of 'WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR') I dm'd him on New Years."

Kelce confirmed that's how it all started when he spoke with E! News. He explained the strategy he had behind getting Nicole's attention on Instagram. "I didn't just go through every single pic and just start liking it immediately," Kelce said. "It was over the course of a month's span, just following her and liking the pictures that she was posting and watching all of her stories when stories had first started coming out."

Travis Kelce and Kayla Nicole made their first public appearance as a couple in May 2017 at the wedding of Kansas City Chiefs player Jeremy Maclin, according to the Kansas City Star, from which Kelce shared a now-deleted picture of the two of them to Instagram.

The timing there is suspect, at least for one woman — Maya Benberry. If you don't know who that is, you may have missed watching Kelce's short-lived dating show "Catching Kelce" in 2016, where he narrowed down a field of 50 potential suitors to Benberry. Benberry called out Kelce and Nicole's relationship in a series of now-deleted tweets in May 2017. "When you and your ex broke up 5 months ago but you find out on social media that he has supposedly been in another relationship for 6..." Benberry wrote. "I have texts from him in February claiming he was single."

Benberry brought that all up again when Kelce and Swift's relationship was just starting in September 2023. She told the Daily Mail that when it came to Kelce, "Once a cheater, always a cheater." No public comment from Swift or Kelce at this time about Benberry's allegations.

There also doesn't seem to be much that Travis Kelce or Kayla Nicole said about any alleged overlap between his time with Maya Benberry and with Nicole. After their Instagram flirtation became a real-world relationship, Nicole and Kelce stayed together, seemingly happily enough, from 2017 to 2020, including celebrating together over the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory in February 2020 with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his then-girlfriend Brittany Matthews.

Kelce and Nicole's first publicized split was in the summer of 2020; they went from partying together on a boat in July to separating by August, per the New York Post. But they were back together by November 2020. Their final split was in May 2022, and Kelce has made it clear he's over Nicole. Rumors that it was over Kelce being cheap and making Nicole pay for things were publicly denied by both Kelce and Nicole.

With attention coming Nicole's way in the wake of the much-publicized relationship between Kelce and Taylor Swift, Nicole posted an open letter to Black girls on Instagram. She doesn't mention either Kelce or Swift directly, but it seems to partly reflect how their relationship has impacted her: "Dear Black girl, they may call you a traitor for falling in love. [...] They'll say you deserve the backlash and embarrassment. Because of your Blackness, you should have known better ... Please remember your value lies elsewhere. Your value is in your heart."