Travis has had to furiously deny his relationship with Swift is a showmance, and his agency has denounced the document as “entirely false and fabricated”. But, Jack Ketsoyan, one of Kelce’s representatives at Full Scope, has publicly admitted to setting up fake romances between clients in the past. Speaking on Australian podcast The Quicky in 2019, Ketsoyan claimed he had put together at least two famous couples purely for the publicity.
In one case, he said, it was a mutual agreement between agents. “We had a male who had a movie coming out and it was getting a lot of bad reviews and slack, and they wanted to take the negativity away and make it more about him.”
The solution? “We found him a girl: a one-year deal. He finished off the press and a little bit after that they went their separate ways.” It worked out well for her too: she “went from being the third-billed” to a leading lady, boasted Ketsoyan.
In such cases, both parties would sign a “love contract”, he added. Celebrity divorce lawyer Christopher C. Melcher, also speaking on the podcast, said that in that kind of contract there would most likely be stipulations as to where and when they’re photographed together – as well as non-disclosure lines governing what can and can’t be said. Melcher declared he had even seen contracts with clauses pertaining to sexual relations, although he noted that “if it was truly an arranged relationship, sex wouldn’t come into it.”
Swift herself was accused of fabricating a romance with actor Tom Hiddleston in 2016, which Hiddleston denied was a publicity stunt. The high-profile pair dated for just three months – but that was long enough to distract attention from her breakup with DJ Calvin Harris.
Ketsoyan has even co-written a novel, Guilty Pleasure, all about a celebrity who starts a fake relationship to drum up positive publicity (with the help of his PR ex) after he gets out of rehab.
Other showmances are just focussed on plugging a product, Ketsoyan admitted. “It’s to be able to sell the hype of it – whether a concert, album, or getting people to go see the movie.”
Jackass star Steve-O claimed that Nicole Richie only dated him as “a big publicity stunt”, calling the paparazzi when they were together, and Nick Lachey has made similar claims about the photographers who suddenly appeared when he went on a date with a then-relatively unknown Kim Kardashian.
However, the trouble in today’s world of fake news and AI is that it’s becoming harder to distinguish between truth and fabrication, laments Borkowski. “That’s the really profound idea at the centre of all this. People will look at this Kelce-Swift document and say ‘There’s smoke here’, and it’s very difficult for their PRs to defend them.
“Especially when you have a huge, powerful fan base like the Swifties, they can have an emotional response to a story: what feels true rather than what is true. It’s easy for someone to take advantage of that and make mischief.”
Swift famously has an iron grip on her brand, music and reputation, even going so far as to re-record her albums with the title addition “Taylor’s Version” after a bitter dispute over her back catalogue. But, thanks to the Wild West of the internet, she and Kelce may find such rumours hard to shake off.