In an exclusive interview with Scripps News Cleveland's John Kosich, Travis Kelce's father, Ed Kelce, gave us an in-depth look at his son's recent engagement to one of the world's biggest pop stars.
On Tuesday, Travis and Taylor Swift announced their engagement in a joint social media post.
According to Ed, his son proposed to Swift almost two weeks ago, a little more than two years after they became one of the most notable celebrity power couples.
"Travis actually did the proposal, oh, maybe two weeks, not quite two weeks ago," Ed Kelce said. "He was going to put it off till this week. I think she was getting maybe a little antsy, but he was going to put her off till this week, to, you know, make some grand thing, to make it a big special event. And I told him repeatedly, you know, you could do it on the side of the road, do it any place that makes it a special event ... when you get down on one knee and ask her to marry you."
Ed said Swift's father, Scott Swift, was telling Travis the same thing.
When the special day arrived, Travis popped the question at a garden in Lee's Summit, Missouri.
"He got her out there, they were about to go out to dinner, and he said, 'let's go out and have a glass of wine,' ... they got out there, and that's when he asked her, and it was beautiful," Ed Kelce said. "They started FaceTiming me and their mother and her folks to make sure everybody knew. So, to see them together is great."
He said he was at a Philadelphia Eagles practice when he got the call that the two were engaged.
"I was at ... an Eagles practice, a public practice that they had a lot of people that, well, the Eagles had 60,000 people at a public practice two weeks ago on a Sunday night," Ed Kelce said. "So at that practice ... I got a FaceTime call from them, and as soon as I saw the FaceTime, I saw it was Travis, and then I saw Taylor there with him, I knew what they were going to say, and they, you know, let us know."
Ed said he knew about Travis's plan to propose months in advance; he even expected him to pop the question during last year's NFL season.
He said he has not seen his son happier than he is with Swift.
"We actually went to a thing in KC Sunday night, which was an ESPN airing of 'The Kingdom' and went to that, and his mother and I went with him back to his house for dinner, where Taylor made dinner, and we had a wonderful dinner with them outside on the patio and to just watch the two of them, just crazy about each other. It's truly kinda neat," Ed Kelce said.
While the engagement is still new, and no wedding planning has occurred quite yet, Ed said he is as prepared as he can be for the wedding bells.
"They're just two young people very much in love, cast in a spotlight that they really haven't sought but kind of followed with their success in their respective fields," Ed Kelce said.
This story was originally published by Maya Morita and John Kosich at Scripps News Cleveland.
