What The Hell Is Happening To Travis Kelce?

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Look how they massacred my boy!

Travis Kelce is not actually my boy, though I respected him as an athlete for years. He may have lost a step or two in the past two seasons, as his stats dipped, but he is still one of the best players in the NFL. (Is Taylor Swift Driving A Wedge Between Travis Kelce And Former Teammates? Signs Say Maybe)

But I no longer respect him, not because he’s losing steam. Something deeper has happened to him, outside of his performance on the field, that has turned him into a clown. 

Kelce was recently featured in a GQ magazine photo shoot, a once-popular magazine geared toward narcissistic metrosexuals. 

I’m sorry to put you through this, but look at this man. 

Travis Kelce shot by Ryan McGinley and styled by @LuxuryLaw for the September issue of GQ https://t.co/MpOWZ0mTiZ pic.twitter.com/Iyuy3AFuHg

— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) August 12, 2025

He’s dressed up in tacky luxury clothes, holding a $10,000 bag, while cosplaying as some rough-and-tumble cowboy from the bayou. In one photo, he looks like the Q-Anon shaman. In another, he’s wearing ripped jeans like an angsty hipster. In all of them, he looks like he could be a gay stripper ready to give the bachelorettes a night to remember. 

He’s not reinventing himself, and he’s certainly not cool. He’s beclowning himself. 

Kelce is still a football player on paper, but in reality, he has been turned into a pop culture prop. He’s now more famous not for his athletic ability and incredible career with the Kansas City Chiefs but because he is Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. 

Whatever happened to athletes sticking to the covers of Sports Illustrated? What about the athletes in the old “Got Milk?” commercials? Whatever happened to athletes who served as positive role models for young men, who inspired them to compete and pursue excellence on and off the field? 

Kelce isn’t a role model for young men anymore; he’s more like a poster to be hung in an 8th-grade girl’s bedroom. 

You cannot fully blame Swift, either. Although she thrust him into the spotlight for reasons other than football and distracted him during the past two seasons, Kelce is making his choice himself. He is trading the life of an NFL legend for a commercialized entertainment career as a B-list celebrity. 

It’s a tragedy.