As I sat down to write this column, I clicked shuffle on Spotify’s “Taylor Swift Complete Collection” playlist, and “Lover (First Dance Remix)” began to play. It couldn’t have been more fitting with the news of her engagement to Kansas City Chiefs tight -end Travis Kelce.
Swift posted the announcement to Instagram on Tuesday afternoon surprising fans everywhere, including me. Until then, my focus had been on her upcoming album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” I didn’t think there would be any more big news from her until after the album was released Oct. 3.
Even then, I was expecting the next big announcement from the singer-songwriter to be a tour. An engagement couldn’t have been further from my mind.
I never thought the public would know when Swift got engaged, since she keeps most of her romantic life, and life in general, private. Being a huge Swiftie, I love knowing what is going on in her life, but I know it’s not my place to know everything,
Swift has not always kept her personal life private. She used to post on Twitter, now X, and Instagram regularly, not just when she had something to announce. Her comments were open and she would interact with fans on social media.
She started keeping her personal life private in 2016, following the release of the song “Famous,” which contained offensive lyrics about Swift. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and his then-wife Kim Kardashian claimed the two musicians had a conversation about it and Swift gave him permission to use the lyrics. Swift disagreed. West also released a music video for the song in which there was a fully nude wax sculpture of Swift.
People began to “cancel” Swift with “#taylorswiftisoverparty” trending on Twitter. For about a year, she did not attend any public events or post on social media. When she returned in 2017 to announce her album “Reputation,” her presence in the public eye changed and she became very private.
Now that she is with Kelce, Swift has returned to being a little more open with her personal life.
With the rise of social media and smartphones, the lines between celebrities and fans have become blurred. So much information is available to the public at all times, and we crave it. People can feel like they personally know celebrities, like Swift, and should be allowed to know everything about their private lives.
But I think it should be entirely left up to the celebrity to decide how much of their life they want to share. As a longtime fan of Swift, I do want to know the details of her life, but I also recognize that it’s not my place to demand it.
We are not friends, despite how well I feel I know her from her music. You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger and demand to know everything about their love life. Fans should respect celebrities' choices to keep their lives private and be grateful for any details they give us.
Kelce joined Swift on stage at one of “The Eras Tour” shows and she’s attended many of his football games. She even congratulated him on his back-to-back Super Bowl championships with a kiss on the field after the game.
It seems that now, Swift does not have to hide her love anymore. She’s found someone who simultaneously respects her boundaries and doesn’t share everything about their relationship while not being afraid to express his love for her. She’s found her lover and the setting of their engagement shows that.
The dreamy garden with pink flowers everywhere is very reminiscent of one of Swift’s “Lover” photoshoots. I think it’s a beautiful sentiment as "Lover” is speculated to be mainly about her ex, Joe Alwyn.
It seems like Swift has done what she encouraged fans to do during her tour. She would ask fans to make new memories with her songs and not let the past determine their meaning. Fans claimed that at shows soon after Swift and Alwyn broke up in April 2023, they could see tears in her eyes while she performed the song “Lover.”
Now, she got engaged in a place like the "Lover” album, but to someone else, and seems happier than ever and her fans couldn’t be happier for her. Fans are so excited about this announcement because we’ve watched Swift go through the hardships of love, whether they’ve been listening to her since 2006 when she released her debut album, or just got into her music following the hysteria surrounding her tour.
I began listening to Swift around 2010 when my Dad gifted my Mom the “Speak Now,” CD for Christmas. At that age, I just loved her music, but as I grew up, I started to learn more about Swift and her life. I’ve watched and listened to her fall in and out of love, go through heartbreaks and break hearts.
When someone shares such intimate details of their life with you, you want the best for them even if you don’t know them.
Swift and Kelce's engagement shows that in the moment, heartbreak can feel like it will never end, and you’ll never be able to move on. But right around the corner could be something great.
In her song “So High School,” speculated by many to be about Kelce, Swift sings “In the blink of a crinkling eye / I’m sinking our fingers entwined.” It seems that in the blink of a crinkling eye, she found the person to forever entwine her fingers with.
