Nick Lachey only sees the positives of Taylor Swift attending NFL games to support boyfriend Travis Kelce — including how it brings him closer to his 9-year-old daughter Brooklyn.
“You know what’s amazing is my daughter never, ever wanted to watch a football game with dad,” Lachey, 50, told Entertainment Tonight in an interview published on Tuesday, February 13. “Now she will sit. She said, ‘Have they shown Taylor yet? Have they shown Taylor yet?’ I was like, ‘No, not yet. Oh, he scored. Come on baby.'”
The 98 Degrees frontman, who traveled to Las Vegas to watch Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers at the 2024 Super Bowl, shares Brooklyn, along with sons Camden, 11, and Phoenix, 7, with wife Vanessa Lachey.
The actress, 43, pointed out that over time, the daddy-daughter bonding time has become about more than Brooklyn just seeing her favorite pop star on screen. “She’s also watching the game with daddy,” Vanessa told the outlet.
“Look, I would watch any football game anyway,” Nick continued. “But I understand and appreciate what [Taylor’s] brought to football this year and to the NFL and look, who isn’t a Taylor Swift fan?”
Swift, 34, has been traveling the country to support Kelce, 34, since they went public with their romance in September 2023. She has since been to 13 games, even flying across the globe after her Tokyo Eras Tour concert to watch the Chiefs secure the Super Bowl LVIII victory against the 49ers on Sunday, February 11. Swift watched the game from a private suite in Allegiant Stadium alongside her parents, pals Blake Lively, Lana Del Rey and Ice Spice as well as Kelce’s family. She later congratulated Kelce from the field, where the two shared a passionate kiss.
Like Lachey, much of the public has been taken by Swift and Kelce’s romance. However, some football fans have been bothered by the NFL’s coverage of the Grammy winner, claiming that the league has prioritized Swift over the actual game.
For her part, Swift has clarified that she’s not concerned with people’s opinions when it comes to her showing up for her boyfriend.
“I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in. There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once,” Swift told TIME in a December 2023 profile. “I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”
Kelce, meanwhile, has openly marveled at how his “amazing” Swift is at handling the backlash. “I’ll say this, they showed Taylor at the game and you don’t see an entire home team fanbase go insane for somebody wearing the opposite team’s colors,” he said during an episode of his “New Heights” podcast that month. “Just shows you how amazing that girl is.”
Other celebrities and professional athletes have come to Swift’s defense as well, including Kelce’s teammates. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes told ESPN in November 2023 why he doesn’t see Swift’s attendance as a distraction.
“I don’t think it feels any different. People see the whole Taylor Swift and Travis [thing] and they make it a huge deal because it is a huge deal,” he explained. “I think it becomes a bigger deal to the fanbases than it does to the guys who are actually in the building. … I think you can understand why it’s not become a distraction or anything like that because everybody cares about being the best they can be every day.”
Travis’ older brother, Jason Kelce, who plays as a center for the Philadelphia Eagles, has also shared why he sees the NFL’s coverage of Swift as a positive thing, calling her an “unbelievable role model.”
“The attention’s there because the audience wants to see it. If people didn’t want to see it, they wouldn’t be showing it, I know that,” Jason, 36, said during an interview with Cincinnati’s ABC affiliate WCPO 9 in February 2024. “She’s a world star and the quintessential artist right now in the world.”
He continued: “[She’s] immensely talented, an unbelievable role model for young women across the globe, so I think that the NFL would probably be foolish not to show her and show her be a role model for all the young girls out there.”
