Years before Jordan Rodgers found The One in JoJo Fletcher, he was the original football player hoping Taylor Swift might give him a shot.
When the topic of Swift, 33, and rumored flame Travis Kelce came up during a recent interview with Us Weekly, Fletcher, 32, was quick to reveal, “What you don’t know is Jordan’s a bigger Swiftie than I am.”
“A million percent,” Rodgers, 35, confirmed. “I was going to her concerts when she was playing in front of 200 people in the middle of nowhere, Northern California when I was in high school, I have the picture to prove it. I met her afterward — [she had her] crimped hair, first album. That’s me, I’m a Swiftie.”
Fletcher added, “That’s the one photo that he will always pull out on a rainy day — that one photo he took with Taylor Swift in, like, 2006.”
After joining in on the joke that Kelce was “really able to put Taylor on the map,” Rodgers acknowledged that he used to leave tickets to home games at the box office for Swift when he was the quarterback at Vanderbilt.
“She lived two blocks away from the stadium. No, she never showed up,” the former athlete, who was a Commodore from 2010 to 2012, told Us. “So I shot my shot back in the day.”
Fletcher, who said “oh my gosh” as Rodgers told the story, joked that her husband’s story made her think that Swift “wasn’t into football players.”
“That’s why I’m so confused,” she added with a laugh. “Guess it just wasn’t you, Jordan.”
“I just wasn’t quite Travis Kelce, which is totally understandable,” Rodgers said of the tight end, adding that he “absolutely loves” the idea of Swift and Kelce dating.
When Fletcher noted that she still has to be “convinced” that it’s the “real deal” — “the jury’s still out for me” — Rodgers quipped he would like more “evidence” too. “Can a paparazzi catch them, like, kissing, making out or something?” he joked.
While some fans are waiting for Swift, 33, and Kelce’s next moves after she attended two Kansas City Chiefs games this fall, Bachelor Nation cheered when Fletcher and Rodgers tied the knot in May 2022, six years after they met on The Bachelorette.
The pair are now gearing up to start a family — “We’re kind of in this phase where we’re excited for kids when it happens,” Fletcher told Us — Rodgers believes raising their dogs has been solid practice.
“Jordan tried to make the joke earlier that he thinks that dogs might be easier — and I said, ‘Let’s just wait until we have a kid,'” she quipped.
Rodgers clarified he meant the infant stage. “They both wake us up in the middle of the night, at least a kid for a period of time you can put in one place and it’s not going to run away or chew something up,” he said. “So I’m not saying it’s easier for the long haul, but I feel like there’s a period of time that at least you know where your kid’s going to be when you put ’em down!”
Acknowledging that she “can’t even imagine” how much she is going to love their future children because of how much she loves their pups, Fletcher and Rodgers have teamed up with Purina to create an Everyday Adventure Guide designed to empower dog owners to infuse excitement and exploration for their pets into daily life.
“The goal is really to just infuse that same excitement and that same exploration into our dogs’ lives every day. We try to think of something to do that just makes our dogs happy. For us, when they’re happy, we are so happy. And even just working at Purina, recognizing how much just those small moments with your dogs really strengthens and fuels the bond that you have with them,” Fletcher told Us, calling Jackson and Jagger the real “stars” of their family. “So we just put this guide together, easy, attainable, everyday things that you can do with your dogs, how the Purina prime treats are a daily part of our day and why our dogs love them. And we have a bunch of great stuff in there too from our Dr. Ruth, our veterinarian.”
Rodgers noted that the tips stem from their dog Jackson getting older. “Part of this is the accessibility that you don’t have to plan these extravagant adventures — for a dog, just taking a walk for 10 minutes can be the highlight of their day and can go so long for activating their minds, their muscles, keeping ’em younger longer,” he said.
