On the night of Feb. 11, 2024, in Las Vegas, television cameras carefully tracked Travis Kelce, a 6-foot-5-inch, 34-year-old tight end with a large beard and a buzzcut, as he played one of the most important games of his NFL career. More importantly to some viewers, cameras also followed Kelce's girlfriend, pop sensation Taylor Swift.
As the Kansas City Chiefs drove down the field to win Super Bowl LVIII on a walk-off touchdown pass in overtime, as the confetti began falling in Allegiant Stadium, and as Kelce and Swift began celebrating, some viewers likely started getting very worried. According to their speculation, the grand conspiracy was all going according to plan.
But despite the numerous theories swirling around about what Kelce and Swift might do after the Super Bowl, we found no evidence that they had announced they would leave the United States if former U.S. President Donald Trump were to win the 2024 presidential election, as users on social media claimed, like in the post below:
(X user @DonaldTNews)
This particular claim originates as just one of a larger group of conspiracies revolving around Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl.
The story started a few weeks into the NFL season, when Kelce and Swift began dating publicly. Over the next few months, the Kansas City Chiefs, already one of the most talked-about teams in the NFL, became the subject of even greater scrutiny. Sports commentators couldn't decide whether the Chiefs were a good team or not, especially when they lost a few winnable games in the last few weeks of the season.
But in the playoffs, the Chiefs found a second wind, winning their way into the Super Bowl over teams that some experts thought were better. At that point, the conspiracy theories began: The NFL was rigged and referees would throw games to ensure that the Chiefs (and therefore Taylor Swift's boyfriend) would win the Super Bowl.
Some commentators went further. Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy theorized on X (formerly known as Twitter) that after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, Swift and Kelce would publicly endorse Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election.
I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there's a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let's see how it ages over the next 8 months.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 29, 2024
So when the Chiefs came back to win a Super Bowl that the 49ers dominated for long stretches, anyone who believed the theories might have been worried. An X post claiming that Kelce and Swift had publicly stated they would leave the country if Trump won might have confirmed some of those fears.
But we found no reputable sources reporting on the supposed statement from Kelce and Swift. Given the intense media scrutiny that occurs around the Super Bowl, if the two had made such a statement, news organizations from sports blogs to major newspapers would have reported it.
Because we found that no media outlets had covered the supposed news, we rate this claim as "False."