NEED TO KNOW
When Kelsey Pomeroy first moved to Kansas City, Mo., in 2016, she was confused.
Everywhere she went, she could have sworn she was hearing her name. Even more perplexing? When she went to coffee shops or ordered takeout, baristas and servers misspelled her name left and right.
“Kelce,” read all of her coffee cups and takeout containers.
“It took me a while to figure out that people were not talking about me,” the Kansas City-based influencer, who makes content surrounding her life as a mother in the Midwest, tells PEOPLE exclusively.
Instead of an entire city talking about her, Pomeroy eventually realized people were actually referring to Travis Kelce, who has been the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs since 2013.
“I’m a Chiefs fan now, but it was all very new to me, so I didn’t know who Travis Kelce was,” she admits. “I also didn’t know why people kept spelling my name with a ‘C.’”
It took her a long time to realize that Kelce was the football player’s last name, she says.
“I thought it was like a Kelsey Grammar situation,” she jokes. “And then once I figured that out and I finally eventually saw the spelling, then all the puzzle pieces fell into place that they were spelling my name, like Travis Kelce’s name ’cause we’re in Kansas City.”
As a result of her unexpected connection to Kansas City and its football team, Pomeroy became a fan of the team as well.
“It’s not really an option to not become a Chiefs fan in Kansas City,” she jokes. And, while she doesn’t like to brag, Pomeroy does think that there is a connection between her 2016 arrival in Kansas City and the Chiefs’ climb to fame.
“I don’t want to claim to be good luck for the entire city, but I guess before 2016 in the history of the Chiefs, we weren’t that good,” she jokes. “We weren’t this good for sure, but I’ve only ever known winning since I’ve been here. So to me, all they do is win.”
When news of Travis Kelce’s relationship with Taylor Swift first became public in 2023, it didn’t really faze Pomeroy. That is, until she started hearing her middle name, Taylor, out in public, too.
Kelsey Taylor/Instagram
“It wasn’t even something that I considered until I was walking around town and then people were calling me out by my first and middle name, like I’m in trouble,” she says.
“It became very intimate, very fast, especially that first season when it was like all over the news,” she says. “People were talking about it nonstop.”
Despite constantly thinking that people are talking about her in public, the influencer never considered doing anything drastic about it, like, for example, changing her name.
“Had my name been Taylor Swift, then that would be hard,” she says. For Pomeroy, hearing her first and middle name out in public really only comes when people are saying the names Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in succession.
However, there have been a few perks that have emerged from sharing such a similar name with Kansas City’s most famous celebrities. After the relationship between Swift and Kelce went public, Pomeroy made a video parodying a day in her life, hearing her name around Kansas City.
“Me posting that video was intentional,” she says.
As an influencer with over 300,000 followers on Instagram, Pomeroy is in the business of writing herself into the narrative, she says. Which is why, as a result of posting the video, and using the Swift and Kelce names to her advantage, Pomeroy has been able to secure brand partnerships with companies like Old Navy and more — especially when they do anything Chiefs related.
“How do I write myself into this story so that I get so that when Old Navy or Raising Cane’s is searching for Kansas City influencers and Chiefs, how do I pop up in their algorithm?” Pomeroy says she asked herself. “Well, this thing, this crazy phenomenon is happening to me with my name. I made the video. It went viral.”
“And when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, I popped up and Raising Cane’s invited me to go to their Super Bowl party, where I got to meet two football players,” she continues.
When Kelce and Swift got engaged on Aug. 26, Pomeroy recalls how a friend texted her, urging her to capitalize on the moment.
“She sent me a message, she said, ‘You need to repost that video,’” referencing the original viral clip.
In the caption of one of her videos, she wrote, “Every time [Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce] are in the news cycle, (like getting engaged, congratulations! ) I feel like everybody is talking about ME when I’m in public.”
Publicizing her experience with her name has grown her community online. “I love being a local Kansas City person,” she says.
And it’s grown other things as well, she shares: “It’s good views, but it also made me like 12 grand.” She still has yet to make it to a Chiefs game, however.
Perhaps one of the funniest parts about the whole scenario is that Pomeroy is not the only person who has had a similar experience.
“I’ve gathered in my comment section a collection of Kelce Taylors, Taylor Swifts, Travis Kelces, Travis Taylors, Travis Swifts, and a lot of them live here in Kansas City, who also are walking around,” she laughs. “I’ve like joked about we need to make a support group for people who have Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift names.”
