George Kittle won’t be forgetting this year’s Tight End University any time soon, especially because of the spontaneous duet he shared with Taylor Swift at a bar in Nashville during the event.
While speaking to NBC Sports Bay Area & California‘s Matt Maiocco recently, the San Francisco 49ers star reflected on hanging out with the pop star at the NFL tight end summit — which he cohosts with Travis Kelce and Greg Olsen every year — in June. “We have a fun Monday night welcome party at our hotel in Nashville for Tight End University,” he explained. “Taylor and Travis came, and they were like, ‘Hey, wanna go to Broadway?’”
After heading down to a bar on the famous Nashville strip with Kelce, Swift and Claire Kittle — who is married to George — the California athlete said that something magical happened. “I was in the process of handing Claire and Taylor drinks for the night, and I was like, ‘I just gotta tell her that ‘Love Story’ is one of my favorite songs, definitely my favorite Taylor Swift song,” he recalled.
“And as I was telling her, it came on the speakers, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to miss this opportunity,’” Kittle continued. “You don’t get to sing ‘Love Story’ with Taylor Swift very often. It was just an absolute riot and something I’ll probably remember forever.”
Shortly after the event, Kittle shared a video on Instagram of himself and Swift jumping up and down while belting out “Love Story” together. Kelce also makes a cameo in the clip.
Tight End University took place over the course of three days in Music City, with many of the NFL’s tight ends coming together from all over the country for group training and community-building activities at Vanderbilt University. In addition to attending the welcome party with Kelce, Swift showed up at the Tight Ends and Friends concert at the Brooklyn Bowl — where she surprised the crowd with an unscheduled performance of Billboard Hot 100-topper “Shake It Off.”
While later reflecting on the event on his New Heights podcast, Kelce revealed that his famous girlfriend’s performance was entirely last-minute — as in, she didn’t even practice before taking the stage with headliner Kane Brown and his band. “Tay just kind of went up to [Brown] and the band and went, ‘Hey, if you guys are down, I’ll go up there, play a song and see if we can pop the roof off this place,’” Kelce reflected earlier in July.
He added at the time, “[She] just went out there without practicing, and it was pitch-perfect.”