Prince William Says He Tried to Move Travis Kelce Out of the Famous Taylor Swift Selfie

Prince William has said that when Taylor Swift took the backstage selfie that became one of the most shared photographs of her Eras Tour, he was trying to move Travis Kelce out of it. The Prince of Wales made the remarks during a surprise appearance on The Graham Norton Show on Friday, October 23, where he discussed the photograph, taken at Wembley Stadium in London in June 2024, according to People. Parade, Hello Magazine and Page Six also reported the appearance and the remarks.

William had brought his two eldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, to Swift’s Eras Tour show at Wembley for his 42nd birthday, Parade reported, citing People. Backstage, the family posed for a photograph with Swift, and Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and Swift’s boyfriend, kept getting into the frame. People reported that host Graham Norton asked William whether he had been aware of the significance of the selfie, and that William said he had not: “I wasn’t until recently. I hadn’t appreciated the significance.”

William then gave his account of the moment, as People reported it: “I was trying to move him out of the photo! Travis kept coming back in, and I couldn’t work out why he kept coming back in. I was trying to move him out so it was just me and Taylor and the children.” People reported that the audience laughed at the remarks. InStyle reported that William made the appearance alongside Earthshot Prize supporters Cate Blanchett, Hannah Waddingham and Robert Irwin, and that Norton showed him the selfie during the programme.

The significance William said he had not appreciated was this: when Swift posted the selfie to her Instagram account on June 22, 2024, it was the first photograph of Kelce that she had ever shared there, Parade reported. Hello Magazine likewise reported that the picture was the first ever publicly shared by Swift or Kelce of the two of them together, and that the couple had begun dating nine months earlier. Swift captioned the post “Happy Bday M8! London shows are off to a splendid start,” a birthday message to William, Parade reported. The photograph itself belongs to Swift’s account and is not reproduced with this story.

William did eventually get a photograph without Kelce in it. Page Six reported that a separate selfie featured only Swift, William, George and Charlotte, and that the Prince and Princess of Wales’ account shared a version of that picture with the caption “Thank you @taylorswift for a great evening!” The photograph that became famous, however, was the one with Kelce in it, the one Swift posted to her own account the next day.

Kelce’s own published account of the same meeting predates William’s remarks by more than two years. On the New Heights podcast, which he hosts with his brother Jason Kelce, he described meeting William and the children and called William “the coolest” and the family “an absolute delight,” according to Operation Sports. InStyle, reporting the Norton appearance, noted that Kelce appeared to have been unaware of any attempt to move him out of the photograph, having said at the time that he was starstruck at meeting the heir to the throne and his children.

Friday’s appearance was not William’s first encounter with Swift. Hello Magazine reported that the two first met in 2013, when Swift attended a Kensington Palace gala for the Centrepoint charity and William joined her and Jon Bon Jovi on stage to sing “Livin’ on a Prayer.” William has previously described that moment, as Hello recounted: “To this day, I still do not know what came over me. Honestly, even now I’m cringing at what happened next, and I don’t understand why I gave in.” Eleven years later, at Wembley, he was in the photograph that marked a milestone in Swift and Kelce’s relationship — by his own account, without knowing it at the time.

Sources: People; Parade; Hello Magazine; InStyle; Page Six; Operation Sports.