Prince William said he attempted to remove Kansas City Chief Travis Kelce from a now-famous backstage selfie with Taylor Swift and the prince’s two eldest children, then laughed as he described what happened when Kelce kept returning to the frame.
William discussed the photo during a surprise appearance on The Graham Norton Show that aired Oct. 23. The selfie was taken backstage at London’s Wembley Stadium on June 21, 2024, and shows Swift, Kelce, Prince George and Princess Charlotte alongside William.
“I wasn’t until recently. I hadn’t appreciated the significance — and actually, I was trying to move him out of the photo,” William said. “But Travis kept coming back in, and I couldn’t work out why he kept coming back in.”
The prince, 44, told host Graham Norton that at the time he did not grasp how historically notable the image would become: it marked the first public photo of Swift and Kelce together following the public start of their relationship in 2023.
What he said and the photo’s background
- The selfie was shared publicly by Taylor Swift after her June 21, 2024, concert at Wembley Stadium.
- It included Swift, Kelce, Prince George and Princess Charlotte and was widely circulated as the first joint public photo of the singer and the NFL star.
- William told Norton he initially did not recognize the significance of the image and joked about trying to exclude Kelce from the shot.
William’s remark came during a lighthearted segment of Norton’s program and was delivered to applause and laughter from the studio audience. The anecdote adds a personal, behind-the-scenes detail to a photograph that received extensive media attention when it was first posted.
Swift, 36, and Kelce, 37, later married; the selfie remains one of several high-profile public moments connecting the couple with members of Britain’s royal family. William’s comment on the late-night program was presented as a humorous recollection rather than a formal statement.
Earlier coverage of the selfie noted the context of the June 2024 meeting: Swift was concluding a performance and backstage photos that included public figures drew immediate attention across social and traditional media.
