Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Started Dating Long Before They First Appeared Together, Says Neighbor Wes Bergmann

Kelce’s neighbor Bergmann said he tried to share the news six months before the couple went public, but no one believed him

Wes Bergmann, pictured left, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, pictured right. Photo: Art Streiber/E! Entertainment via Getty; Brooke Sutton/Getty

Travis Kelce’s next-door neighbor is sparking a discussion about the early days of the Kansas City Chiefs player’s relationship with Taylor Swift.

Wes Bergmann, 41, sat down with hosts Michele Fitzgerald and Kellie Nalbandian on The Social Game Podcast where he discussed his insider knowledge of the A-list couple. Nalbandian said one of “the first things” she learned about Bergmann before his appearance on the show was that he lives next to Kelce, 35.

The Traitors star then revealed that living in the exclusive gated community of Leawood in Kansas City, made him aware Kelce was dating the “Bad Blood” singer, 35, months before it was revealed publicly.

“He’s an enigma — on one hand, he’s like this big, tough football player,” the two-time winner of The Challenge said of Kelce. “On the other, he’s going to have about 12 Taylor Swift songs written about him.”

The reality TV star claimed when he first told Survivor winner Fitzgerald that Kelce and Swift were dating he wasn’t believed.

“Okay and on that note, I was like the first person to know about any of this stuff and I tried to tell this woman a long time ago,” he said referring to Fitzgerald. ” ‘They are together, just so you know’ and she didn’t believe it.

“She didn’t believe it, she was like ‘she only goes for artists,’ ” he continued. “I beat the validating of her showing up to games and stuff by like six months.”

Wes Bergmann on The Social Game Podcast.The Social Game/YouTube

Fitzgerald chimed in, saying, “She loves a brooding artist, usually they are a bit scrawnier, they’re kind of like womanizers in a lot of ways. And then you have him who seems chivalrous, an all-American football player and he has just been winning and crushing.”

“To me he’s the boy next door,” Bergmann added as Nalbandian dubbed him the “winner of girly chat” for being among the first to know Kelce and Swift were dating.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at the US Open Tennis Championships in 2024.Gotham/GC Images

The Kansas City Chiefs tight end attended Swift’s Era tour on July 8, 2023, with rumors they were dating arising in the months after as the “Blank Space” singer was spotted attending some of his games.

PEOPLE had confirmed that Swift and 1975 frontman Matty Healy were “no longer romantically involved” on June 5, 2023, while Kelce previously dated fitness model Kayla Nicole.

It wasn’t until October 2023 that Swift and Kelce’s relationship was confirmed as they stepped out together at a Saturday Night Live afterparty.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift shared with Time in December 2023. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.”