Travis Kelce Was Asked To Sing ‘Karma,’ And Let’s Just Say Travis’ Version Was Not As Good As Taylor’s Version

Travis Kelce just wants to play Super Bowl LVIII already. His Kansas City Chiefs will face the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, February 11, with a shot at becoming the first team to repeat as Super Bowl champions since the New England Patriots 20 years ago, and Kelce has made it abundantly clear that all he cares about is winning that game.

The problem with that is he’s dating the world’s most famous pop star (or perhaps person, in general), and reporters can’t help themselves. Throughout Super Bowl week in Las Vegas, Kelce has been asked more questions about Taylor Swift (and her newly announced album, The Tortured Poets Department) than about football, and he has fielded them with a level of patience I will never claim to possess, but then, he was asked to sing “Karma,” Swift’s Grammy-nominated Midnights track.

The Kansas City Chiefs livestreamed today’s (February 8) press conference on YouTube. Around the 51-minute mark, a reporter asked, or sang-asked, “I was wondering if you could help me complete this lyric here: ‘Karma is a guy on the…’” Kelce played along with a very straightforward response, “Chiefs, of course.”

Then, the reporter pressed her luck and, almost assuredly, immediately regretted it. “Finish it!” she said. “‘Coming straight…’” Kelce looked around with an uncomfortable and confused yet polite grin on his face while the reporter leaked confidence and meekly completed her own line, “‘Home to me…’” Kelce smiled and said, “What’s the second question?” The media scrum collectively laughed, and then the reporter shifted gears into asking about Kelce’s perspective on the Chiefs being known as a dynasty should they win their third Super Bowl in five years.

During the Chiefs’ bye week in early November, Kelce traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina to watch Swift perform a show on her ongoing The Eras Tour. “Karma” is the last song at every The Eras Tour concert, but on November 11, she altered the lyrics, “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me.” The lyric previously was “the guy on the screen,” referring to her ex, British actor Joe Alwyn.

“I had no clue — well, I might have had a little bit of a clue,” Kelce said of the lyric change on the following week’s episode of New Heights, “but, definitely, when I heard it come out of her mouth, it still shocked me. I was like, ‘Oh, she really just said that.’”