THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Many questions hang over this year's Super Bowl in Las Vegas, but which is the biggest?
Is it whether Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes win and establish the Kansas City Chiefs as the NFL's first post-Patriot dynasty? Nope.
Or can Brock Purdy, last year's Mr. Irrelevant, prove he's the 49ers' Real Deal? Not that either.
Will Steve Spagnuolo come up with another genius defensive game plan? Uh nuh.
Is Christian McCaffrey the real non-quarterback MVP? Not that big.
Or with the Super Bowl in Las Vegas does NFL commissioner Roger Goodell still believe "we remain very much opposed to gambling on sports. We want to make sure we're doing what's right for the game."? You think the fans care?
The biggest question on NFL fans' minds this year is: "Will Taylor Swift be able to fly back from her tour date in Tokyo in time to get to Vegas to cheer on Travis Kelce and the Chiefs?"
The unlikely pairing of the woman who is arguably the biggest singing star on the planet with the All-Pro tight end seemed, on the face of it, unlikely. Kind of like the pretty girl who's editor of the high school literary magazine and sings folks songs dating the football team captain. But what might have seemed improbable in the pre-internet world is commonplace today, though not without a certain awkwardness.
In fact, it's turned into a sort of culture war. Some NFL fans have complained about the 30 seconds or so of cutaways to Swift and the Kelce family in a box at playoff games (far less time than the fawning shots we usually see of team owners) which have been blown up by Fox News and other far-right outlets into conspiracy theories about the Kelce/Swift relationship being created by the Bidens, or by the deep state, to somehow fix the election or infect the minds of children.
This is your America today.
Celebrity has always drawn celebrities, and the social media world has both made that easier and created far more "celebrities" than before. Athletes themselves are no longer just achievers on the field, where football stars marry homecoming queens or Miss Mississippis. They are entertainers, paid like actors or singers because they are the stars of hugely profitable television programming. And they use that celebrity in all sorts of other areas.
Back in July 2023 when Swift's 'Eras' tour played Arrowhead stadium, Kelce was there. He traded "friendship bracelets" with Swifties, but wasn't able to get a special one – with his phone number – to Taylor after the show. He told the story on the podcast he hosts with his brother, Eagles' center Jason (see what I mean about celebrity building celebrity?). By September T 'n' T were quietly dating.
What makes this story even more tasty is that Jets' quarterback Aaron Rodgers had gone to a Swift show at the Meadowlands and posted on Instagram (or "instaface" as Bill Belichick would say) how much he liked Swift – never knowing Kelce had already got there. As a footnote, Rodgers would be disqualified from this list for having previously blown it with actress Olivia Munn.
It's inevitable in today's troubled internet times, that Kelce and Swift would be dubbed the greatest athlete/celebrity hookup in history. The Daily Mail even went so far to say it might "challenge" Posh and Becks – soccer star David Beckham and Spice Girl Victoria Adams – as the biggest of all time (all-time in tabloid terms meaning both British, and within the memory span of the average 30 year old Brit). With that in mind, let's look back at some of the real greatest crossover relationships, judging them on their overall celebrity impact, and picking a top 12.
It's a history going back at least 75 years, to the one which remains the greatest of them all…
12.
Underwood, a country singer, makes this list as a serial jockalizer [see below under Giselle Bündchen], having had a previous relationship with Tony Romo. Fisher, then a center with the Ottawa Senators, met her backstage at a concert in 2008; they married in 2010. In 2011, the Senators agreed to trade Fisher to the Nashville Predators, where the couple still live.
11.
Alt was the Eighties supermodel equivalent of Giselle Bündchen, as well as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover girl. She married New York Rangers defenseman Greschner in 1983, and they stayed married until 1996. In 1999, while acting, she met Russian hockey star Alexei Yashin, who played for the New York Islanders, her team growing up in Long Island, and was 13 years her junior. Although Yashin returned to Russia to play in the KHL (Kontinental Hockey League), and then to work with Russian hockey, the long-term relationship seems to have survived.
10.
The best part of Posh & Becks was either her dressing him up and painting his nails (I wonder if Kelce's wardrobe hasn't been affected by Swift!) or the rise to fame of Becks' PA Rebecca Loos, whose own antics on reality TV won't be mentioned here.
9.
Wilson was a star two-sport athlete in college, playing minor league baseball for two years while playing quarterback at North Carolina State, then transferring to Wisconsin for the 2011 season. He was drafted in round 3 of the draft by the Seahawks in 2012 and became their starter as a rookie. He won a Super Bowl and got to another with Seattle. His first wife was Ashton Meem, whom he met in high school and started dating the summer before she started at University of Georgia. Eventually Meem transferred to UNC to be with Russ; they married in 2012 and divorced two years later. He met singer Ciara Princess Harris in 2015; they married the next year. Her first album, Goodies, and the single of the same name went to number one; two more songs went to number two, duets with Misdemeanor and Ludacris. None of this means anything to me. She's gone on to acting and modeling, and the couple have four children. She had a child from an earlier relationship with the rapper Future, but that was in the past, before Wilson.
8.
Kournikova is a Russian tennis player who once reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon and was rated as high as number 8 in the world. She was also known as a popular pin-up. Iglesias is the son of singer Julio Iglesias and by odd coincidence is a singer himself, having performed a duet with Christina Aguilera at the Super Bowl in 2000. The couple have been together since 2001.
7.
Soccer center-back Piqué went from Barcelona's youth team to Manchester United as a teenager, won a Champions' League Trophy, then returned to Barca to lead them to nine LaLiga titles and another Champions League triumph. He also starred for Spain in two World Cup wins. Colombia singer Shakira is a major star in the Spanish speaking world and way beyond. She'd been with the son of the president of Argentina for ten years before she and Piqué began a relationship in 2011, had two children, and separated in 2022. Oddly, both of them had run ins with Spanish tax authorities over foreign income. Shakira has referenced Piqué's cheating with his new 22-year-old girlfriend in a couple of songs, and at the recent Latin Emmys. Meanwhile Piqué has announced he wants to return to football as a coach.
6.
Tyson was the baddest man on earth when he met Givens, an actress whose career started with Bill Cosby and who was starring in the sitcom Head of the Class, which was ironic because she was said to have been the only student booed at her college graduation. On their first date, Givens' mother Ruth and her publicist both tagged along. (Ruth Givens had sued New York Yankees' star Dave Winfield for giving her an STD, which he denied but which was settled.) Eleven months after their first date, Mike and Robin married; Tyson later said Givens had told him she was pregnant. After she and her mother had bought a $4.3million estate in New Jersey and set up a $7.5m account from Tyson's funds, Robin told Mike she'd miscarried. They didn't divorce until after the couple went on air with Barbara Walters, where she explained how Tyson abused her, and Tyson, looking drugged, mumbled agreement. Before the divorce, Tyson did walk in on Robin in bed with Brad Pitt; according to Tyson, Pitt keep repeating "Dude, don't strike me" as if stoned, and somehow he walked out alive.
5.
I'm going to put this up high, though we'll have to wait and see what legs the relationship has. Swift's relationships, short and long, include guitarist John Mayer, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, RFK's grandson Conor Kennedy, singer Harry Styles, DJ Calvin Harris and British actors Tom 'Loki' Hiddleston and Joe Alwyn. The good news is she always writes songs about their breakups, so we may get the whole story about Travis one day.
4.
Dick Lane got his nickname because he loved jazz, listening to Jimmy Forest's song 'Night Train' while trying out for the LA Rams, where teammate Tom Fears played the record incessantly. The nickname stuck in his rookie year when he made a game-saving tackle of Charlie 'Choo Choo' Justice: "Night Train Derails Choo Choo" was the headline the next day. He and Washington, one of the great jazz singers of her era, met in July 1963 in Chicago and fell in love instantly. Within weeks he became her fourth husband, and intended to manage her before going back for one more NFL season. Just after his season ended, in December, Washington died after an accidental overdose of drugs prescribed for her "nervous anxiety".
3.
This one is always overlooked, and it's an unusual one, because Bob and Jane were high school sweethearts in Van Nuys. She was spotted by a talent scout and signed by Howard Hughes, who turned her into America's sex-object in a western called The Outlaw. (Incidentally, Hughes, who designed airplanes, also designed a push-up bra especially for her.) Waterfield led UCLA to a Rose Bowl, and as a rookie with the Rams in 1945 led them to the NFL title, passing, running, punting, kicking and intercepting passes. He won the league MVP award. In 1951 the Rams won another NFL title, with Waterfield splitting time at QB with Norm Van Brocklin – both are in the Hall of Fame. Bob and Jane married in 1943, when he went into the service; they divorced in 1968. In 1953, Jane and Marilyn co-starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. They probably had a lot to talk about.
2.
The current GOAT of NFL quarterbacks got together with Brazilian super-model Bündchen after his three-year relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan ended, but before Moynahan realized she was pregnant with Brady's child. When Bündchen and Brady married in 2009, she was arguably the world's best-known model, he was the NFL's best QB. Their marriage was conducted very privately, their children's privacy protected, but they divorced in 2022, possibly because Brady's refusal to retire from football had led to a split. It should be said that cutaways to Bündchen during Brady's games were less frequent than they are to Swift during Kelce's, though Taylor hasn't yet matched Giselle's quote to the effect that Brady lost because he couldn't catch the ball as well as throw it. Brady is supposedly now dating Russian model Irina Shayk. If that makes Brady a 'modelizer' (to quote Sex & The City) Shayk is a 'jockalizer', having been with soccer's Cristiano Ronaldo before Brady (with actor Bradley Cooper in between); she was also spotted with F1 champ Lewis Hamilton a few days after going out in Florida with Tom Terrific.
1.
DiMaggio was one of baseball's all-time greats, the best player on a run of Yankee championship teams, holder of the remarkable 56 game hitting streak. If I have to explain Marilyn Monroe to you... But the marriage was probably doomed; Joe was handsome, but neither outgoing nor willing to play second fiddle. They divorced and Marilyn moved on to playwright Arthur Miller. The story goes that when Marilyn returned from a Korean war USO tour, she told DiMaggio how amazing it was. "Tens of thousands of soldiers in the crowd, roaring and cheering everything I did. You have no idea what it was like!" Joe replied "Yes, I do."
Read on for our 'also-rans'
Christian McCaffrey (NFL) and Olivia Culpo (model): The 49ers answer to Kelce/Swift!
Nnamdi Asomugha (NFL) and Kerry Washington (actress)
Justin Verlander (future Hall of Fame baseball pitcher) and Kate Upton (SI Swimsuit model and actress in the 2012 Three Stooges reboot): before Verlander, Upton dated NBA star Blake Griffin and former Jets QB, Mark 'The Sanchize' Sanchez
Eric Decker (NFL) and Jessie James (country singer)
Dwyane Wade (NBA) and Gabrielle Union (actress): Union also dated NFL players Darren Sharper and Chris Howard and, was the high-school girlfriend of Jason Kidd (later an NBA player and coach)
Eric Johnson (ex-Yale and NFL player) and Jessica Simpson (less famous than Marge or Lisa, but a "singer, actress and entrepreneur")
Davon Godchaux (NFL) and Chanel Iman (model): Chanel was previously married to ex-NFL player Sterling Shepard
Derek Jeter and Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Mariah Carey, Tyra Banks, Gabrielle Union (see Dwayne Wade), Mariah Carey, Minka Kelly, Adriana Lima, Scarlett Johansson, Jordan Brewster and Rachel Uchitel: Jeter's now married to model Hannah Davis. But ARod's wingman at shortstop for the Yankees gets a dishonourable mention for slipping one of my nieces his "private number" in Miami while involved with one of the women above.
Bo Belinski
Bo was a left-handed pitcher who made an impressive Major League debut with the Angels, with wins in his first four games, including a no-hitter. If he turned out to be wild on the mound, he was even more wild off the field. Bo was engaged for a year to Mamie Van Doren, who was a B version of Jayne Mansfield, who was a B version of Marilyn Monroe. His conquests read like a list of my first TV crushes: Ann-Margaret, Tina Louise, Connie Stevens. He was married to Jo Collins, a Playboy Playmate and to lumber heiress Jane Weyerhaeuser. Mamie Van Doren, by the way, who is still alive at 93, claims to have had affairs with, among others, Howard Hughes, Clark Gable, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Eddie Fisher, Warren Beatty, Tony Curtis and former heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey, who was 36 years her senior.
Joe Namath
Namath came just after Bo Belinsky, but Broadway Joe was the player most credited with bringing glamour to pro sports. His white shoes, fur coats, and notorious nightlife became trademarks, and the July 19, 1965 cover of Sports Illustrated shows Joe, in his Jets uniform, standing on Broadway, with the caption: Football Goes Show-Biz. He cleaned up the East Coast before going Hollywood, and there's some overlap with Bo's history, like Mamie Van Doren, and Ann-Margret, with whom he starred in the movie CC And Company (rumors say yes). He also had affairs with Raquel Welch, Randi Oakes, Christa Helm and Kim Basinger. He told Sports Illustrated, "I don't like to date so much as I like to kind of, you know, run into somethin', man."
If Namath set the tone for the Sixties and Seventies change of mores, there's no question that the Kardashians have done something similar for the new millennium. The poster-children of this era are famous for being famous on "reality" TV for reasons no one can explain. The leader of the pack, Kim, has had relationships with Cristiano Ronaldo (who seems to be a sort of rite of passage – see also Paris Hilton, Maria Sharapova), NFL star Reggie Bush, NFL player Miles Austin, and a 72 day marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries. She is now linked to Odell Beckham Jr., who broke up with singer Lauren 'Chunky' Woods after they had their first child. Kim's sister Khloé had a long relationship with hooper Tristan Thomson, followed by Rashad McCants, and then was married to Lamar Odom, in a reality relationship that seemed to echo the weirdness of Mike Tyson's marriage. She canceled her divorce from Odom in 2013, when he was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel, before divorcing him three years later, and has lately been linked with bearded NBA star James Harden. The Key Kardashian Kourtside for basketball is Kendall Jenner, who could field an entire team based on her relationships with Chandler Parsons, D'Angelo Russell, Blake Griffin, Devin Booker, Jordan Clarkson and Ben Simmons. She's also dated Harry Styles (hello Taylor!) and is currently linked to Bad Bunny. The missing link!
