Breaking up is hard. Breaking up when famous is often harder. Breaking up when your ex starts dating one of the most famous people on the planet? Exhausting just as a hypothetical, TBH.
For Travis Kelce's ex-girlfriend, Kayla Nicole, it's not a hypothetical, of course.
The sports reporter and influencer is currently appearing on Fox’s Special Forces: The World’s Toughest Test, and, unsurprisingly, her ex's very famous new girlfriend (Taylor Swift, for anyone who may have been in a coma since 2023) has come up during her time on the show—and it didn't take long, either.
During the second episode of the series, which aired on Jan. 8, Nicole opened up about her last relationship during a chat with fellow contestants Alana Blanchard and Kyla Pratt. While she didn't mention Kelce's name initially, she revealed his identity when asked and added, “he’s dating Taylor Swift.”
Nicole and Kelce dating for five years before their split in 2022, and, like many people adjusting to the end of a longterm relationship, she's still processing things to some degree.
“Going through a public breakup, just to be frank, it's been overwhelming," she explained during a confessional interview (per E! Online). "I've never experienced anything like it."
None of this is exactly news—Fox teased Nicole's reveal about Kelce and Swift and her confession about the "overwhelming" reality of her public breakup in trailers promoting the season. In the full episode, however, Nicole got candid about one more thing, re: her famous ex's even-more-famous new love, going on the record about how she really feels about Swift.
If you're expecting a "Bad Blood" pun right about now, sorry to disappoint, because Nicole's (admittedly brief) comment on the "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" singer was nothing but positive.
“I really like, like, her,” Nicole said of Swift. “I think she’s very talented.”
As E! Online reports, the former WAG faced the issue again later in the episode, when she was taken aside by Special Forces operatives, who helped her navigate the “social media battlefield” she's faced in the wake of her breakup from Kelce and his high-profile new relationship.
Nicole got emotional during the segment, in which she opened up about struggling with being compared to the pop star.
"I could post about the sky being blue, and people will have a response about an ex and their new situation," she explained. "It's inadvertently affected me to the point where it makes me question, just like my overall value as a as a person, as a partner."
When this moment caused Nicole to tear up and apologize, the operative in the scene with her pushed her to think about why Kelce and Swift's relationship makes her question her own value.
"I think it's just the comparison," she explained, physically wiping her eyes and holding back tears. "And it's just like on loop."
Nicole briefly choked up again and apologized before concluding, "I think I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with that."