Tom Cruise didn’t leave much room for mystery after sitting next to Taylor Swift during the Chiefs’ Monday night opener against Denver.
The two were one of the most talked-about pairings from Kansas City’s season opener at Arrowhead Stadium, where Swift made her first appearance since marrying Travis Kelce in July. Cameras caught the pair in an extended conversation, and the internet immediately went to work trying to figure out what was being said. One fake viral meme even gave Cruise subtitles about Scientology, but Cruise shut that down himself this week.
On Thursday’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he told Jimmy Fallon exactly what Swift was doing in that conversation: “She was schooling me on football,” Cruise said. “For real. Like, she was bringing the football.”
Cruise had plenty of praise for Swift beyond her Xs and Os. “First of all, she’s a genius,” Cruise added.
“I’ve been following her since she was a kid. Everybody there, all their friends, they’re a beautiful couple and magical in their own right.”
He also said Swift came into the relationship with Kelce knowing very little about football, but has clearly picked up the game quickly. Cruise noted that it had been years since he’d been to a football game himself, making the outing a rarity for him given his work schedule.
The conversation wasn’t all football, either. Cruise said they also talked about music and movies during the broadcast.
His connection to Swift goes back to one of her Eras Tour shows in London in 2024, and he was also among the celebrity guests at her wedding to Kelce in July. Cruise’s latest round of appearances comes as he promotes his new film, Digger, and he also showed up on Kelce’s New Heights podcast this Friday.
That podcast has been making noise of its own after Kelce admitted to a missed holding call during the same Broncos matchup. As for whether Cruise will keep getting football lessons from Swift, that’s still up in the air. But based on Monday night, she sounds ready to teach anyone the game.
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Cruises comments added another layer to the now-familiar intersection of Chiefs football and pop-culture attention around the teams biggest games. He also mentioned Swifts growing knowledge of football, which only reinforces how often Kansas Citys spotlight extends beyond the field these days, even before the conversation gets to what it looked and sounded like inside Arrowhead on that particular night. [Read more 🡒]