Why Taylor Swift Isn’t With Travis Kelce at the Cannes Lion Festival in France…Read Details

Travis Kelce went from Tight End University in Tennessee to Sport Beach in Cannes, France this week. The Kansas City Chiefs player and his brother, Jason Kelce, were filmed giving a talk during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this afternoon. Their event was titled “The Kelce Effect: Exploring New Heights With Travis and Jason Kelce,” and footage from the talk showed them largely discussing their podcast, New Heights, and relationship as co-workers and brothers.

Missing from the audience was Taylor Swift, Kelce’s girlfriend who has been on her Eras Tour in the U.K. this week. Swift is on a break from performances today but will be playing in London tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, given Swift just played in Cardiff, Wales, on Tuesday, the singer chose not to travel to Cannes Lion to reunite with Kelce just one day before hosting another concert.

Even the day before the Kelce brothers’ talk, Mark Penn, the CEO of Stagwell, which organized Sport Beach, told Page Six that he couldn’t imagine Swift would attend. “I doubt it, but all speculation is good in marketing,” he said when asked about her.

Caroline McCarthy, a marketing executive and former journalist, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, today that Swift was never all that likely to go despite Page Six’s report raising the possibility. “Most people involved in Cannes planning have known for weeks that Taylor Swift wouldn’t be coming to #CannesLions2024,” McCarthy wrote. “Travis was told explicitly not to bring her because the security needs would overwhelm the city.”

Kelce’s Cannes Lion talk has finished though, and he is only a two-hour flight away from London. Should Swift and Kelce reunite later today or tomorrow, it will be their first time publicly together since their Lake Como, Italy vacation in mid-May. The couple spent the past month on different continents, with Swift doing her European Eras Tour leg and Kelce doing various football and acting work commitments across the U.S.