Taylor Swift has revealed the real reason she fell for boyfriend Travis KelceCredit: Getty

Travis wooed Taylor by using a hand-made bracelet with his phone number on itCredit: Getty

Time Magazine named Taylor Swift as their Person of the YearCredit: AFP

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis, 34, told on his New Heights podcast in July how he had tried and failed to get the friendship jewellery featuring his digits to Taylor after one of her gigs.

And she has now confessed she was so impressed by his efforts, she got in touch and they started dating.

In her first in-depth interview in almost four years, Taylor — who didn’t go public with Travis until September — explained: “This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell. We started hanging out right after that.

“So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other.

“By the time I went to that first game (that he played in), we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game.

“We would never be psychotic enough to hard-launch a first date.

“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care.

“The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

Revealing her new love of sport since attending her beau’s games, she added: “I’m just there to support Travis. Football is awesome, it turns out. I’ve been missing out my whole life.”

Her new happiness and mind-boggling success is a world away from darker times six years ago.

‘I didn’t trust anyone’

During a cover interview with Time magazine, which named her its Person of the Year, Taylor told how she spent 12 months housebound after Kanye West and Kim Kardashian slammed her online — leading her to believe that she had suffered a “career death”.

However, the superstar, now one of the world’s best-selling artists, is convinced the traumatic incident, along with the controversial sale of her musical back catalogue to mogul Scooter Braun, is what has led to her incredible current success.

She admitted: “It’s not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this happening were two horrendous things that happened to me.

“The first was getting cancelled within an inch of my life and sanity.

“The second was having my life’s work taken away from me by someone who hates me.”

Kanye included a lewd lyric about Taylor and suggested he made her a superstar on his 2016 song Famous — prompting fury from the Shake It Off singer.

He and wife Kim then released an edited snippet of a phone call which appeared to show Taylor agreeing to the song’s lyrics.

The early audio, which was posted online by the famous couple, led to Taylor being hounded on social media and labelled a snake and a rat, inspiring her dark 2017 album Reputation.

But unredacted audio later revealed Taylor never once gave Kanye’s track the nod.

Despite being vindicated, the pile-on had already resulted in Taylor retreating from the spotlight and moving to England, which she only now feels ready to discuss in depth.

Music mogul Scooter Braun sold Taylor’s musical back catalogue which led her to re-record her albumsCredit: Getty

The singer opened up about her feud with the reality star and her ex Kanye WestCredit: Getty

She recalled: “I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots . . . Make no mistake, my career was taken away from me.

“You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar.

“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before.

“I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get phone calls.

“I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone any more. I went down really, really hard.

“I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life.”

Taylor reinvented herself with Reputation and her 2019 album Lover, before pivoting away from pop with 2020’s Folklore and Evermore, followed by the hugely popular Midnights last year.

Her record sales have soared with re-recorded versions of her old albums to prevent Scooter profiting from her work — and it’s clear she is still angry about him buying her tunes in 2019.

Coming out swinging, she said: “With the Scooter thing, my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted them for nefarious reasons, in my opinion. I was so knocked on my ass by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold.

“I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now. This is it. I don’t know what to do’. I’d run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, ‘Just redo it.’

“My dad kept saying it to me too. I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’.

‘Happiest I’ve felt’

“Nobody wants to redo their homework if, on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.

“It’s all in how you deal with loss. I respond to extreme pain with defiance.”

Her next re-recording will be Reputation (Taylor’s Version), complete with bonus tracks which she insists are “fire”.

Now she believes the turbulent nature of her time in the spotlight has led to a new mindset, which means she won’t waste a minute dwelling on the past.

She said: “Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house . . . I’ll never get that time back.

“I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”

Next year, Taylor will bring her Eras Tour to the UK for 18 sold out stadium shows, which will cement it as the highest-earning tour of all time — and the first to make over $1billion.

Speaking about rehearsing for the 180-minute shows, which include more than 40 songs and 16 costume changes, she said: “I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot.

“Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud. Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.

“Then I had three months of dance training because I wanted to get it in my bones.”

Taylor retreated from the spotlight and moved to England, which she only now feels ready to discuss in depth.Credit: Getty

Taylor has also quit booze to ensure she’s always in good shape before going on stage, admitting: “Doing that show with a hangover, I don’t want to know that world.”

Reflecting on her place in music, the star admitted things have worked out — despite her ups and downs.

She explained: “I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years.

“I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away.

“This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been.”