Royal Rumble! Prince William Tried to Ditch Travis Kelce in Taylor Swift Selfie

Travis Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, recently offered a humorous take on an incident involving Prince William and Taylor Swift during a royal family photo opportunity. On a recent episode of his podcast, New Heights, posted on October 28, Travis and his brother Jason Kelce discussed Prince William's confession to Graham Norton that he had attempted to move Travis out of a selfie taken with Taylor Swift and his two eldest children in 2024.

Travis Kelce expressed his understanding of Prince William's actions, stating, “I get it, man. I think we all get it.” He explained, “I was just a boyfriend at that point. I wasn’t her husband yet. We don’t really know if this is gonna last, so it’s kinda just, ‘Move out of the way real quick so we can keep this photo forever.’” He jokingly added, “‘Hopefully this doesn’t go south, otherwise, this photo is not gonna be as good.’”

Despite Prince William’s initial intentions, the selfie, which included Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Taylor Swift, and Travis, ended up holding a significant historical value. Taken during the London leg of the 14-time Grammy winner’s Eras Tour, this group photo marked the first instance of Swift posting a picture featuring Travis on her own social media account. Prince William later quipped on the October 23 episode of The Graham Norton Show that he “hadn’t appreciated the significance” of the selfie serving as Swift and Travis’ “hard launch,” noting, “But Travis kept coming back in, and I couldn’t work out why he kept coming back in. I was trying to move him out so it was just me and Taylor and the children.”

Travis confirmed that he took no personal offense from the prince's attempts and even offered a lighthearted solution. Following Jason’s suggestion that they could Photoshop him out, Travis joked, “I gotta ship that to him. Just send it to Buckingham Palace. You think it’ll get to him?”

Beyond the royal anecdote, the episode also touched upon current events, including the ramping up of the 2026-27 NFL season. The Chiefs have had a strong start, winning all but one of their games, with their sole loss on October 25 to the Seahawks, which was notably followed by social media banter from the Seattle team shading Swift and Kelce. Taylor Swift has been a consistent presence at Kansas City’s home games, most recently cheering on the team from her suite at Arrowhead stadium alongside Este Haim and Caitlin Clark during the October 18 game against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift continues to maintain a busy schedule with her own career. She recently achieved her 16th career No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Patient Zero” from her deluxe album, “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore.” Swift also attended the Academy Museum Gala and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame gala, where she made history as the youngest person ever to be inducted at the age of 36.