Fans are recalling Taylor Swift’s cheeky impression of a “Minnesota soccer mom” amid the rumors ― you might have heard ― that she’s now romantically involved with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
The clip, from a 2009 interview with BBC Radio 1’s “Switch with Annie and Nick,” shows Swift adopting a sort of Frances-McDormand-in-“Fargo” twang to joke about being late to pick up a child from soccer practice and nearly hitting a deer. (How’s the actual accent? Uhh ― “A” for effort, let’s say.)
“I was driving down the road the other day and I was in my van and this mini ― oh, this deer, this dang deer just jumped out in front of my van and I didn’t even know what was going on,” she quips. “If I swerve, then I might go off the road and hit a snowdrift, and I was just trying to pick up Jimmy from soccer and I didn’t ask for that deer to go out in the middle of the road. If I hit the deer, then I got that on my mind all day and I gotta clean off my car and there’s possible deaths.”
Watch Taylor Swift’s “Minnesota soccer mom” impression below.
The 14-year-old clip has no specific connection to Kelce aside from the general sports theme, but it’s been recirculating online as media frenzy about the precise nature of Kelce’s ties to Swift reaches fever pitch.
The 12-time Grammy winner has made a pair of highly publicized appearances at Chiefs games in recent weeks. Earlier this month, she watched the Chiefs beat the New York Jets 23-20 from the VIP section of New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where she was joined by pals Hugh Jackman, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and Sophia Turner. She also seemed to be on friendly terms with Kelce’s mother, Donna.
Neither Swift nor Kelce have publicly confirmed a relationship. In an episode of his “New Heights” podcast, however, Kelce accused the NFL of “overdoing it a little bit for sure” when it came to stoking the flames of speculation regarding his private life.
Cooper Neill via Getty Images
Unfortunately, Kelce’s employers have suggested there are simply too many benefits for them to stop emphasizing a player’s purported connection to the world’s biggest pop star any time soon. Both of the Chiefs games that Swift attended notched boffo TV ratings.
Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s senior vice president of social, influencer and content marketing, has described “Traylor” as “a perfect storm of pop culture and sports colliding in a really positive way, with two incredibly passionate fan bases merging together and interacting in ways that they hadn’t before.”
“Hopefully those — especially the young women — that have now gained an interest in not only Travis Kelce, but the NFL more broadly, can stay with us throughout the year and years to come,” Trombetta told The Associated Press in an interview published last week.