Taylor Swift Appeared to Pay Tribute to Travis Kelce’s Super Sunday With One of His Signature Hand Gestures
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce may have been more than 1,700 miles away from each other on Sunday (Oct. 28), but that didn’t stop the singer from paying tribute to her NFL boyfriend during the third and final Eras Tour show in New Orleans. While Swift was wrapping up the penultimate run of Eras U.S. shows at the Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday, Kelce was putting up the best numbers of his so-far lackluster seasons as the Chiefs continued their undefeated streak in Las Vegas.
Swift seemed to nod to Kelce’s big day — he had 10 receptions for 90 yards and one touchdown, his first of the season — when she made a reference to his signature first down celebration while performing her 2022 Midnights song “Midnight Rain.”
Swifties posted video of the moment, in which Swift did the Kelce finger point — which he typically does when he gets a first down — and then kissed three fingers on her left hand and held them up to the crowd in a gesture some took as a sly reference to the Chiefs possibly making history next year if they win an unprecedented third Super Bowl in a row. The hand jive came after Swift sang the lyric, “And he never thinks of me/ Except when I’m on TV.”
While Swift did not offer any comment or clarification on her apparent finger waving salute to Kelce, Swifties are well-attuned to the singer’s love of seemingly casual Easter egg laying and reacted accordingly. “taylor swift just did travis kelce’s first down signal on stage and then sealed it with a 3-peat finger kiss send-off to manifest another superbowl win like you simply cannot make this s— up,” wrote one.
Swift also slyly paid homage to her Super Bowl champ boyfriend Kelce during a performance of “Midnight Rain” on Friday in New Orleans, when she pretended to throw a football while singing the same line and also during “So High School,” during which she imitated Kelce’s old touchdown bow-and-arrow hand gesture.
In addition to doing the bow-and-arrow bit a few times during the UK portion of the Eras Tour, in Buenos Aires, Argentina last year she changed up the lyrics to “Karma” to included the line, “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me”; she also sang that line during a Miami Eras show on Oct. 20.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard