The pop star Taylor Swift and the football player Travis Kelce are engaged.

“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the couple captioned a joint post on Instagram announcing the news on Tuesday, adding a dynamite emoji and a snippet of Ms. Swift’s song “So High School.”

In the first photo, Mr. Kelce is shown on bended knee below Ms. Swift, who is wearing a striped dress and standing under an elaborate floral arch. A later photo shows Ms. Swift sporting a large ring.

The news came just a few weeks after Ms. Swift appeared on Mr. Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, which he hosts with his brother, Jason, to reveal details about her forthcoming album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” which will be released in October. In the friendly setting of a podcast hosted by her boyfriend and his brother, she gave one of her most in-depth interviews in years.

Over the nearly two-hour conversation, Ms. Swift discussed a number of topics, including her sourdough bread baking hobby, her father’s quintuple bypass surgery and learning the rules of football. At one point, she referred to Jason Kelce as her “family.”

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Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce appeared quite smitten with each other during the episode. “You’re so handsome,” Ms. Swift said, clutching Mr. Kelce’s chin, at one point.

That “New Heights” was the vehicle for such an interview was fitting. In 2023, Mr. Kelce tried and failed to give Ms. Swift his number at one of her concerts on her Eras Tour. He recounted the misfire on an episode of “New Heights” in July of that year, and that was how he caught Ms. Swift’s attention.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Ms. Swift told Time magazine of the couple’s relationship. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple.”

She also addressed his having called her out in the podcast interview, joking about how he made his failure to get a meet-and-greet everyone’s problem.

“He threw a man-tantrum,” she said. “It was such a wild romantic gesture to just be like, ‘I want to date you.’”

Later in the podcast, Mr. Kelce joked about the Eras Tour visit, saying, “All I remember is she didn’t want to meet me.”

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Travis Kelce, in his football uniform, kisses Taylor Swift as they are surrounded by media.


Mr. Kelce and Ms. Swift celebrated on the field together after the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl in February 2024. Ms. Swift had flown to the game from Japan, where she was on her Eras Tour.
Credit…Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

While Mr. Kelce, a three-time Super Bowl champion, had been a star in his own right for years, and had worked diligently to increase his profile, his relationship with the multi-Grammy Award-winning megastar rocketed him to a new level of stardom.

Ms. Swift’s presence at Mr. Kelce’s games became the subject of much discussion, frustrating some football fans who argued that the focus on her, and the time it took away from the broadcast, distracted from the sport. It also inspired some right-wing conspiracy theories. (Her presence at his games also appeared to prompt increases in both ticket sales and viewership.)

“I’m just there to support Travis,” she said of her trips to the games in the interview with Time. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”

Just a few months later, Ms. Swift made a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas from Tokyo, where she was performing on the Eras Tour, to watch Mr. Kelce and his teammates win the Super Bowl in 2024.

Later that same year, Mr. Kelce reciprocated the support, appearing onstage with Ms. Swift on the Eras Tour during a performance in London.

The tight end wore a tuxedo complete with tails and top hat for a cameo in a Vaudeville-esque number during the “The Tortured Poets Department” set of the show. (That album contains several tracks that fans believe are about Mr. Kelce.) Mr. Kelce later said joining Ms. Swift in the spotlight was his idea.

And in February, Ms. Swift was once again at the Super Bowl to cheer on Mr. Kelce and his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, in what ended up being a frustrating loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. On the heels of a down season personally for Mr. Kelce, the loss had people speculating about whether he would retire, which he ultimately decided against.

In the months since, with the Eras tour ending and the N.F.L. being in its off-season, both stars were relatively quiet, at least by their own standards. They were guests at a family wedding in Tennessee, she did an impromptu appearance at his annual summit for N.F.L. tight ends, and they fueled engagement rumors, intentionally or not, with a social media post in which Ms. Swift appeared to be wearing a large ring. But they seemed to otherwise take something of a break from public life.

With Ms. Swift’s new album on the way, the news of the engagement and the N.F.L. season about to begin, that break is officially over.