Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy ; Will Heath/NBC
“We worked with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce before they dated,” Ben Marshall, one-third of the writing trio, said on the latest episode of Mike Birbiglia’s “Working It Out” podcast. “And I don’t know [if we should say this], but, she kind of told us that she watched his SNL episode and saw him in our video and was like, ‘This guy seems funny.’”
Marshall, 28, joked that the trio — which consists of him, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy — “brought” the couple “a little bit together.” He noted that while they considered telling the anecdote during their appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in November 2023, they ultimately decided against it in fear of getting heat from fans should the romance go south.
“We were like, ‘I think that if then they break up, we will somehow be, like, pitted as causing this disaster,” he recalled to host Birbiglia, laughing. “It’s just a precarious situation. People have strong feelings.” (Birbiglia, for his part, has his own connection to Swift as he starred in the music video for her 2022 single “Anti-Hero.”)
Please Don’t Destroy joined SNL as writers and cast members in 2021 after their videos went viral on TikTok. Swift teamed up with the trio alongside Pete Davidson in November of that year for the musical parody “Three Sad Virgins,” which aired during the season 47 premiere.
“We didn’t think that she would do it,” Higgins, 27, told Fallon, 49, of the cameo. “We pitched it to her and we were like, ‘It’s called ‘Three Sad Virgins,’ it’s you and Pete making fun of us.’ And she was immediately like, ‘Yes.’”
Kelce, meanwhile, hosted the NBC sketch comedy series in March 2023 where he portrayed Kurt Lightning, a self-defense coach who sets out to help Please Don’t Destroy after they realize they have no respect from their SNL coworkers.
The NFL star’s appearance came six months before he and Swift went public with their romance in September 2023. The pair began dating earlier that summer after Kelce admitted that he attended her Kansas City Eras Tour concert in an attempt to gift her a friendship bracelet with his phone number. One month after confirming their relationship, the couple made a joint cameo appearance on SNL for the season 49 premiere.
The pair have taken the world by storm ever since. In the past few months, Kelce has taken home his second Super Bowl win in a row with the Chiefs, landed a WSJ. Magazine cover and appeared as the face of the biopharmaceutical company Pfizer. Swift, meanwhile, was named TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year, has earned her 13th and 14th Grammys, announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, and kicked off the next leg of her international Eras Tour in Singapore and Australia.
Despite his star being on the rise, Kelce has clarified that he has no plans to retire from football in the near future. He does, however, hope to expand into different areas of the entertainment industry in the future.
“I’ve been fortunate to do a few things outside of the sports world that I’ve been enjoying doing, like getting on camera,” he shared in January press conference. “The SNL stuff kind of opened up a new happiness and a new career path for me, but it’s funny for me to even say that at this point in my career because I think it’s so much further down the road than it is right now.”
Kelce added that he has “no reason” to stop playing the game for now. “I love it,” he said. “We still have success.”
As for the world falling in love with his romance with Swift, Kelce told reporters earlier this month that the pair’s mutual “love for life” is likely what draws people’s attention.
“The values that we stand for and who we are as people,” he explained. “We love to shine light on others, shine light around the people that help and support us.”
