Tom Cruise Reveals What Taylor Swift Was Doing Next to Him at Chiefs Game

Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift gave NFL fans one of the more unexpected celebrity pairings of the young season when cameras caught them deep in conversation inside a suite at Arrowhead Stadium.

Now Cruise is revealing what they were actually talking about.

The 64-year-old actor joined "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday, Sept. 17, just days after sitting beside Swift as she watched husband Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs face the Denver Broncos.

Fallon asked the obvious question.

“When the biggest movie star in the world is sitting next to the biggest artist in the world, what do you talk about?”

Football, apparently. And according to Cruise, Swift was the one giving the lesson.

“She was schooling me on football,” Cruise said.

“For real?” Fallon asked.

“For real,” Cruise replied.

It was a fitting twist considering how much Swift's relationship with football has changed since she began dating Kelce in 2023.

Tom Cruise Says Taylor Swift ‘Knows Her Stuff’ About Football

Cruise said the two also talked about movies and music, but it was Swift's football knowledge that seemed to leave the biggest impression.

“She was bringing the football,” Cruise said. “First of all, she’s a genius. I’ve been following her since she was a kid. Everybody there, all their friends, they’re a beautiful couple and magical in their own right. Everybody there in that booth.”

Cruise hadn't exactly been spending his Sundays studying NFL defenses, either. He told Fallon that Monday's game was his first time attending a football game since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That made Swift a pretty useful seatmate.

“I hadn’t been to a football game since pre-Covid, where I was working and everything,” Cruise said. “So to get to hang out there and have that moment, it was a lot of fun … she knows her stuff.”

Swift's football education has become something of a running joke between her and Kelce.

Taylor Swift and Tom Cruise in the house for MNF

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Cruise said Swift told him about the early days of their relationship, when Kelce had to patiently explain the sport to her.

“She said, ‘You know, he’s so patient,’” Cruise recalled.

“I’m sure he was,” Cruise joked. “I think everybody would be very patient [with her].”

Those days, however, are apparently long gone.

“[Now] she knows … she’s just bringing it,” Cruise said.

Taylor Swift's Football Transformation Even Surprised Travis Kelce

Cruise wasn't exaggerating.

He also appeared on Travis and Jason Kelce's "New Heights" podcast following the game and revealed that Swift had been telling him about the brothers' football history while they sat together.

“I was sitting next to Tay last night … She was telling me about your all’s first date. You were talking about football,” Cruise told Travis.

Cruise also recalled Swift asking what it had been like for Travis and Jason to play against one another, prompting Travis to laugh about just how little she understood about the sport when they first got together.

“She was out there thinking that [Jason and I] were out there basically boxing each other on the field!” Travis said.

Then he explained just how dramatically that has changed.

“And now she knows everything. She sees the flags coming in, she’s like, ‘Oh, that might be a defensive hold.’ I’m just like, ‘What? What did you say, sweetie?’ She was like, ‘That’s encroachment.’ I’m like, ‘Do you know what that is?’ Yeah, she’s, she’s on it now.”

Cruise got the full experience Monday.

“She was schooling me! Like, this happened, that’s happened. He’s coming in. It was awesome,” he said.

For anyone wondering what Swift and Cruise could possibly have been discussing while cameras repeatedly found them together in the suite, the answer turned out to be considerably more football-heavy than expected.

And Cruise came away impressed by more than her ability to recognize a penalty.

“She’s funny. She’s got such a great sense of humor,” he told Fallon. “A brilliant writer also, by the way. Brilliant musician and director. Very skilled.”

Cruise has become a familiar face around Swift and Kelce in recent months. He was also among the A-list guests at the couple's July 3 wedding at Madison Square Garden.

This time, though, Swift wasn't walking down an aisle. She was back at Arrowhead watching Kelce play, and apparently making sure the movie star sitting beside her knew exactly what he was watching.

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