Travis Kelce and his former girlfriend, Kayla Nicole, dealt with a few serious rumors regarding their breakup. Although Kelce’s current relationship with pop star extraordinaire Taylor Swift has completely captivated the world’s attention, she’s not the first public figure he’s ever dated.

One of Kelce’s longest public relationships was actually with Nicole, who’s best known for her work as a sports journalist and influencer. Kelce and Nicole dated for about five years, between 2017 and 2022.

However, their relationship wasn’t exactly linear due to their periodic breakups. Despite this, Kelce and Nicole seemed to share a real, healthy bond, which they happily flaunted to their fans and haters alike.

During a February 2022 interview with E! News, Kelce shared the story of how he first connected with his would-be love. “I didn’t just go through every single pic and just start liking it immediately,” Kelce said of Nicole, who’d caught his eye on Instagram.

“It was over the course of a month’s span, just following her and liking the pictures that she was posting and watching all of her stories when stories had first started coming out.”

He continued, “I was just stalking her and then finally on New Year’s, she gave in. And, you know, New Year new me. She just shot her shot, jumped in my DMs and the rest is history.” Unfortunately, Kelce and Nicole would break up only three short months later, in May 2022.

Here are a few of the rumors that plagued the once-happy couple.

Travis Kelce addressed the cheating (and cheapskate) rumors

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Cheating rumors began sprouting up after Travis Kelce and Kayla Nicole first broke up in 2020. According to TMZ, Nicole supposedly kicked Kelce to the curb after discovering he’d been cheating. However, Kelce killed that rumor at the root. “This is fake news … a lie .. and not at all why Kayla and I broke up,” tweeted the Kansas City Chiefs star at the time (via TMZ). “Take all your hatred somewhere else, please,”

Kelce added. Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time Kelce was accused of cheating. Near the start of his relationship with Nicole, Kelce’s ex, Maya Benberry, implied that he’d cheated on her with Nicole. “When you and your ex broke up five months ago but you find out via social media that he’s supposedly been in another relationship for 6 …” tweeted Benberry in 2017 (via the New York Post).

Kelce also spoke out after he and Nicole broke up for the second time in 2022. Following that breakup, an anonymous source told Barstool Sports Kelce was a tightwad who didn’t financially support Nicole during their romance.

During his episode of “The Pivot Podcast,” Kelce debunked that rumor. “Don’t buy into that s**t,” said Kelce (via TMZ). While Kelce admitted he didn’t fully support Nicole because she didn’t need financial help, he also revealed that he did contribute to her life in other ways. “A hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there wasn’t even thought about,” added Kelce.

Kayla Nicole wanted to get married

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For the most part, Kayle Nicole has kept her feelings about her breakup with Travis Kelce to herself. However, she did have one super vulnerable moment after their breakup. In a deleted TikTok video from September 2022, Nicole revealed that she regretted her relationship with Kelce partially because she’d hoped they’d eventually get married someday.

Side Action captured screen grabs of the video, displaying text that read, “You’re not stupid Kayla ….No, I am actually …Thought I’d get wifed after dating for 5 years … that’s 1,825 days.” Although the rest of Nicole’s message is probably lost to fans forever, it seems their different desires for marriage was at least one of the stressors that led to their breakup.

Shortly after Nicole removed the original video, she posted a follow-up TikTok video captioned, “Its okay to laugh at jokes. Y’all know that right?” Nicole pasted her face on top of a cartoon character running through a city away from the police.

Overlayed over the video were the words, “Literally me when I do anything on the internet.” Nicole also lip-synced to lyrics, saying, “It’s cool when they do it, it’s a problem when I do it … f*** them.”

This video seemed to be a hit with her 81,000 followers. “Can’t laugh about it, can’t cry about it. What the hell do they want you to do then?” wrote one commenter. A second fan wrote, “I freaking love you! I wish I could be blessed with your friendship in my life!!”