Iâll be honest: Before Taylor Swift showed up at the Kansas City Chiefsâ game on Sept. 24, I only recognized Travis Kelce from the American Girl CafĂ© SNL sketch he starred in. As a huge Swiftie and hopeless romantic, Iâm watching the budding coupleâs relationship unfold like something out of a romance novel (hello, pop star x football player trope!). Unfortunately, some people online are still stuck on an old chapter.
Two of Kelceâs exes have been brought up in online conversations amidst Swift and Kelceâs headline-making romance. Maya Benberry, who dated Kelce after winning his E! dating reality show Catching Kelce in 2016, warned Swift to not get too comfortable with her new beau. âOnce a cheater, always a cheater,â Benberry told DailyMail.com. âTaylor seems like such a fun girl with a beautiful spirit so I wish her the best of luck, but I wouldnât be a girls’ girl if I didnât advise her to be smart.â
Kelceâs other ex is Kayla Nicole, a sports reporter and model who dated the football player on- and-off for five years. Nicole has yet to comment on the Swift-Kelce news (why would she?), yet her Instagram comments are flooded with people bashing Swift under the guise of supporting Nicole. Backhanded compliments like âYeah, Kelce took an L and downgradedâ and âTaylor Swift wishes she was this beautifulâŠâ are causing more harm than good.Â
Itâs pointless and disrespectful to compare any two womenâs physical attributes or make parasocial judgment calls about whoâs a better person (or a better match for their mutual man). Some comparisons between Swift and Nicole have even been racially motivated, which majorly crosses a line. TikToker user @mommysaidabadword333 observed that many of the haters in Nicoleâs comment section are black men, specifically âthe ones who canât wait for an opportunity to put down a black woman.â
Why is it that when a famous manâs dating history grows a little longer, the women involved are always pitted against each other? Swift and Nicole join a long list of women the public compared just because they dated the same person: Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber, and Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, just to name a few. And by the way: all of them would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.Â
Swift and Nicole have so much more in common than Kelce. Both are gorgeous, talented, successful women carving out space for womenâs voices to be taken seriously in the media (did you know that as of 2021, only 14.4 percent of sports reporters are female? Go, Nicole!). Letâs celebrate their accomplishments instead of tearing them down over a man, âkay?Â