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Travis Kelce’s ex-girlfriend says she’s getting death threats from Taylor Swift’s ‘hypocritical’ fans

A split image of Taylor Swift posing in gold necklaces and a black dress, and Travis Kelce wearing a football uniform.
Music superstar Taylor Swift and NFL superstar Travis Kelce are rumored to be dating.
(Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press; Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)
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Travis Kelce’s former girlfriend, Maya Benberry, said Taylor Swift’s fans have sent her death threats since she addressed the rumored romance between the NFL player and pop star.

Benberry, who met Kelce in 2016 on his E! dating series, “Catching Kelce,” described Swift’s fanbase, known as Swifties, as “aggressive” and “very hypocritical,” in a Thursday interview with “Inside Edition.” The reality TV personality said she’s faced backlash after implying that Kelce may cheat on Swift.

Benberry told the Daily Mail earlier this week that she wished Swift “the best of luck” in their romance, but also warned, “I wouldn’t be a girls’ girl if I didn’t advise her to be smart.”

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“I’m sure by now she has mastered the ability to see who is really there for her — and who is just using her,” she said.

She went on to repeat allegations that Kelce cheated on her when they dated in 2016.

“Only time will tell, but like the saying always goes, once a cheater, always a cheater,” she continued.

During an interview with “Inside Edition” on Thursday, Benberry doubled down on her cheating allegations and said she received death threats from Swift’s fanbase.

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“Swifties are aggressive, very negative, very hypocritical,” Benberry said. “It’s really crazy to me that someone I think is positive and really nice would have such a negative and angry fan base.”

After outlasting 49 other contestants on Kelce’s dating show, Benberry and the now-two-time Super Bowl champ dated for eight months, she said, adding that they loved each other and were thinking about marriage. However, the pair broke up the following year. In May 2017, Benberry alleged in since-deleted tweets that Kelce had cheated on her with sports broadcaster and model Kayla Nicole.

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Though Kelce has yet to address the allegations, a source close to him told TMZ that Kelce never cheated on Benberry and called the statements, “A poor excuse of someone trying to get her 15 min of fame.” A representative for Kelce did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

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Benberry said in the “Inside Edition” interview that she was offended by the statement given to TMZ and said she felt Kelce and his camp were “laughing” and “mocking” her.

“I’m not jealous or bitter about Taylor — she’s beautiful, she’s successful, we’re in two different lanes — my issue is more with Travis, in the sense of now you’re trying to turn me into a bitter person, or a liar, like I’m delusional, and I’m the furthest thing from that,” she said.

Benberry also shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, a screenshot of a text message to someone she said worked at “Inside Edition,” in which she wrote that the TV segment portrayed her as “some bitter Black woman that is attacking a guy because he’s dating Taylor Swift.” She said her initial goal for the sit-down was to shed light on the way her relationship with Kelce was edited and manipulated in the 2016 reality TV show.

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“I learned a lot of lessons these past few days but I don’t regret at all on speaking my truth,” Benberry said in another tweet.

Interest in Kelce and Swift’s rumored romance exploded last weekend when the “Lover” singer attended the Kansas City Chiefs-Chicago Bears game at Arrowhead Stadium, cheering on Kelce alongside his mother and friends. The pair were seen leaving the game together.

Kelce recently talked about the Grammy winner in the latest episode of his podcast, “New Heights,” calling Swift going to the game “pretty ballsy.”

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“I just thought it was awesome how everybody in the suite had nothing but great things to say about her, the friends and family,” he told his brother, fellow NFL star and podcast co-host Jason Kelce. “She looked amazing. Everybody was talking about her in a great light and on top of that, the day went perfect for Chiefs fans, of course.”

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