How Travis Kelce's Mom Donna Has A Special Influence On His Dating Life

Now that he's Taylor Swift's boyfriend, can we assume that Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has come a long way from his "Catching Kelce" days? The NFL player "shot his shot" with Swift over the summer, according to E! News. The next thing we knew, Swift was spotted at a Chiefs game next to Travis' mom, Donna Kelce, the viewership for Sunday Night Football spiked by 17%, and sales for Travis' Chiefs jersey went up 400%. Just call it the Taylor effect. But while everyone is wondering whether Travis and Swift are the real deal, the question we want answered is whether or not Donna gets along with Travis' songbird sweetie.

Donna burst into public consciousness in February 2023 as the mother of the two brothers who were facing off in a Super Bowl for the very first time. It's clear that both Travis and his older brother Jason Kelce share a wonderful relationship with their mother, and as such, her opinions hold a lot of sway. As he disclosed in an episode of the "New Heights" podcast (via People), Travis believed that Swift's time with Donna was "[gonna be] delightful, it's gonna be a wonderful conversation." Yet we weren't privy to that conversation. What we do know, however, is that Donna has a lot of positive character traits that Travis is hoping to find in his future Mrs. Kelce. 

Apparently, her kind heart tops the list.

In 2016, Travis Kelce starred in an ill-fated dating show called "Catching Kelce" that he wishes the Internet would just forget about. Perhaps because of that, or maybe because of his celebrity status, he admits to having his guard up when it comes to romance. "The stuff that I've been through just in my past, I feel like you've really got to know somebody to take that step and really be committed and be in full throttle," the tight end shared on "Let's Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari." And when he does eventually commit, Travis explained he's looking for a woman who emulates his mother, Donna Kelce. "My mother is an absolute angel, so I kind of base ... who I look at in a significant other based off of how kind-hearted and sweet my mother is," he added (via Entertainment Tonight). "You've got to have some sort of sweetness to you."

Swift was once known as "America's Sweetheart" and though she's since shed that label, plenty of people think she and Travis make a lot of sense together. In true Swiftie fashion, fans have compiled all the reasons they're destined to be — everything from "the bow and arrow pose" to numerological approaches, and that time Coach Andy Reid played Cupid. But despite Bill Belichick's seal of approval, we know there's really only one person whose opinion matters most to Travis: Donna.

Because Donna Kelce is the most important woman in Travis Kelce's life (at least for now), it seems promising that she and Taylor Swift are spending a lot of time together. "Donna likes Taylor and thinks she's very sweet and down to earth," a source told People. (There's that word again: sweet. It doesn't seem like a coincidence, does it?) However, we have to take that source's word for it because in an October interview with "Today," Donna said she'd prefer not to speak too much about Travis and Swift. "It's fairly new. So, I don't like to talk about it. It's just one of those things, obviously everybody saw me. I was in the boxes with [Swift]. It's just another thing that's amped up my life," the Kelce matriarch explained. And when pressed to describe her time with the "Karma" singer, Donna merely said, "It was okay." To be fair, Donna doesn't like to speak publicly about her sons' business. In the face of more questions about Traylor (Tayvis?), she said, "I honestly can't tell you. It's just too new."

However, it's telling that Travis is hyped about his mom's connection with Swift. "I just thought it was awesome that everybody in the suite [on game day] had nothing but good things to say about [Swift]," Travis told his brother Jason Kelce on an episode of the duo's "New Heights" podcast. "[Swift] looked amazing and everybody was talking about her in a great light."