With Taylor Swift appearing on New Heights alongside her boyfriend Travis Kelce, it was easy to forget about the third member on the show in Jason Kelce. But while most of the attention from the podcast has been on the incredible amount of ground covered in Swift’s life and career, it’s worth acknowledging one simple fact.
Jason Kelce is so good at this.
While Travis Kelce may get most of the headlines thanks to his relationship with Taylor Swift, it’s not bad being Jason Kelce. He’s a Super Bowl winner, future Hall of Famer, and Eagles legend from his playing days. And very quickly he’s become one of the most sought-after media personalities in sports or entertainment. He’s had an Amazon Prime Video documentary, servers as an ESPN Monday Night Football analyst (and even experimented as a late night host), and also hosts one of the biggest podcasts in the world alongside his brother. He’s the life of the party with a great family alongside him and is a bonafide media superstar in his own right.
But it goes to show just how immense the Taylor Swift podcast appearance was on New Heights that it was easy to see Jason Kelce as a third wheel going into it. However, that turned out to be anything but the case.
As Swift opened up on everything from getting her music back to the success of the Eras Tour and her new album, it was Jason Kelce leading and guiding the conversation. He was able to get Swift to open up like never before whether it was the emotion of getting her music back, learning about football for the first time, or a window into her personal life and her love of baking bread.
And all over social media, Kelce’s job as a podcast host, interviewer, and all around good dude was met with unanimous approval.
Part of the dynamic at play here is due of course to the chemistry that Swift and the Kelces possess. It’s clear that they are all close to one another and the range from the serious and emotional to the goofy and funny all seemed natural and organic. The entire two-hour-plus podcast wasn’t just watching an interview, it was like you were in their living room with them. The podcast appearance did not appear to be too carefully crafted or highly edited. And it put any conspiracy talk about this whole thing being carefully manufactured for the images of Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce to bed once and for all. Who doesn’t want to try some of her cinnamon swirl sourdough bread after this one?
Part of the aura around the podcast appearance is that Swift simply hasn’t done this before so we had no idea what to expect. It’s why there was so much hype and anticipation and why there were 1.3 million concurrent viewers on the episode premiere that caused it to crash.
Kelce was just as comfortable leading Swift in a conversation about her meticulous performance preparation for the Eras Tour and all the easter eggs for her fans as he was talking about their different feelings on cats. Most importantly, he gave her the time and space to answer almost all the questions that her fans had on their minds and would want to ask themselves. It’s impossible to think that any Swiftie, Chiefs fan, or Kelce fan could have walked away wanting anything more.
Jason Kelce isn’t probably going to do a Frost-Nixon interview with political leaders anytime soon, but he definitely deserves a salute for nailing one of the most interesting, revealing, wide-ranging interviews of a true pop icon that we have ever seen.
And if anything, it’s a signal to ESPN and others that there should be more major opportunities out there for him in the wider media landscape.
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