Travis Kelce’s Ex Kayla Nicole Clears Up the Taylor Swift Halloween Rumors

Kayla Nicole is setting the record straight after her viral Halloween costume sparked speculation that she was shading her ex-boyfriend Travis Kelce and his fiancée, Taylor Swift. The 34-year-old podcast host revealed on her “Pre-Game” podcast that the “Taylor” who inspired her Toni Braxton costume wasn’t that Taylor — it was a childhood friend.

“I had a white best friend. Her name was Taylor,” Nicole said during her November 2 episode. “And she [had] the only house I could go over to as a kid because my mom didn’t play them type of games.”

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Travis Kelce’s Ex Explains the ‘Real Taylor’ Behind Her Halloween Costume

Nicole’s Halloween look — a re-creation of Toni Braxton’s iconic “He Wasn’t Man Enough” music video — went viral when she posted it on Instagram, captioning it, “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. She’s @tonibraxton circa 2000.”

Swifties, however, weren’t buying the coincidence. Many fans claimed the outfit was a dig at Swift and Kelce, who began dating in 2023 and got engaged in August 2025. But on her podcast, Nicole insisted the inspiration was purely sentimental.

“I specifically remember driving home from private school in my uniform in the back of a paddy wagon with Taylor, and her mom was playing this song,” Nicole recalled. “That’s when I realized, wow, white people listen to Black people music as well.”

The anecdote, meant to explain her connection to the Braxton hit, sparked fresh backlash on X (formerly Twitter). “Some things are better left unsaid,” one user wrote, while another accused Nicole of using “Taylor” as a keyword “to get engagement.”

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Kayla Nicole Addresses the Headlines and Keeps It Moving

The podcast host told People in a recent interview that she’s learned to take viral headlines with a grain of salt. “Sometimes I will click an article if I feel the headline is so sensationalized,” she said. “My mouth almost drops when I see some things about me because you click the link, read the article, and almost nothing about the article supports the headline. It’s pretty disheartening.”

Nicole, who has nearly one million Instagram followers, has built a brand around her “Pre-Game” podcast and her wellness line, Tribe Therepē. After graduating from Pepperdine University with a degree in broadcast journalism, she worked for ESPN and Barstool Sports before dating Kelce from 2017 to 2022.

Since their breakup, Nicole has tried to stay focused on her career — even as her personal life continues to make headlines. “The life of an entrepreneur: there really is no day-to-day schedule,” she said. “That’s probably the hardest part for me.”

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