Travis Kelce: Chiefs camp offers welcome 'sanctuary' after closely watched wedding to Taylor Swift

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — Travis Kelce likes to call training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs his “sanctuary,” whether that be the quiet, hourlong drive north to Missouri Western State University or the solitude that he finds while living in college dorms for a month.

Such refuge was probably never more welcome than on the heels of this past summer.

It was just over a month ago that Kelce exchanged vows with Taylor Swift in a star-studded wedding that tied together one of the best tight ends in NFL history with the biggest pop star on the planet. At the intimate gathering in cavernous Madison Square Garden, Adam Sandler served as the surprise officiant, Stevie Nicks performed to a crowd of sports and entertainment icons, and fans lined the New York City sidewalks outside the historic venue hoping to catch a glimpse of it all.

“The wedding was the best night of my life,” Kelce said Wednesday, speaking for the first time at camp. “I appreciate everybody who came out and celebrated and had fun with us. That's about all I got for that night. It was a crazy night.”

The guest list included actors Bradley Cooper, Zoë Kravitz, Hugh Grant and Ethan Hawke; models Gigi Hadid and Karlie Kloss; comic Chris Rock; film director Steven Spielberg; and plenty of NFL players, including retired quarterback Tom Brady and several of Kelce's teammates with the Chiefs, like his best friend and quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.

The Swift-Kelce relationship began with his failed attempt at giving her a friendship bracelet at a concert. Kelce invited Swift to watch him play at Arrowhead Stadium, she took him up on the offer, and the rest of their courtship has been a celebrity fairy tale.

Right down to the nuptials at Madison Square Garden, which has always captured Kelce's imagination, and where Swift has played to plenty of sold-out shows; she also turned up there to watch the Knicks play the Spurs in the NBA Finals in June.

“I always told myself I'd go for a playoff game when the Knicks were rocking, and my wife went when I was stuck in minicamp,” Kelce said with a wry smile. “It was kind of cool to live out my childhood dream to be in that venue. I can't thank the owners of MSG enough for allowing us the opportunity to do that, knowing we wanted a private event.”

Besides the wedding, Kelce has been busy pursuing several business opportunities since the end of last season, including his decision to buy a small share of David Blitzer's stake in his hometown Cleveland Guardians.

That puts him into rivalry territory with Mahomes, who owns his own small stake in the Kansas City Royals.

Yet on the field, the quarterback and tight end continue in lockstep, and never has it been more important for them to lift each other up. Mahomes is coming off a season-ending knee injury that required surgery in December, and Kelce is trying to prove that at age 36 — he turns 37 in October — he can still get it done in a young man's game.

“I still got a lot of love for this game. I still think I can go out and play at a high level,” Kelce said. “I want to go out there and prove to myself that I can play at a better level than last year. I think that's the biggest thing for me.”

There are few things that Kelce has not accomplished over 13 seasons on an NFL field. He's won three Super Bowl rings, was voted first-team All-Pro four times, and he has been invited to the Pro Bowl each of the last 11 seasons.

He contemplated retirement prior to last year, but the fact that Kansas City had just been blown out by Philadelphia did not sit well with him. So, Kelce came back for another go-round, catching 76 passes for 851 yards and five touchdowns while playing in every game — numbers that would represent a career year for most tight ends.

The Chiefs scuffled to a 6-11 finish, though. And if Kelce wasn't going out on a Super Bowl loss, he certainly wasn't quitting after a season like that.

“The fact that we didn't make the playoffs,” he said, “I moved on pretty quick.”

He moved onto wedding planning, to be sure. But also into preparing for the upcoming season, which most believe will be his last, one way or another. Kelce was ever-present throughout the offseason, whether it was voluntary workouts or mandatory minicamp, and he has been a constant source of energy during the hot, humid practices that are the hallmark of training camp.

“This is always going to be my sanctuary. I think St. Joe has a special place in my heart,” Kelce said. “You need to have these days. You need to have this time of grinding with the guys, being around them all day, starting to create that chemistry and standard for how we are going to do things. This year it's ramped up even more.

“I think that's a big thing,” Kelce added, “just enjoy these moments with these guys I've built this culture with.”

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Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce talks with a teammate during NFL football training camp Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in St. Joseph, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (87), and wide receiver Rashee Rice (4) walk to NFL football training camp Friday, July 31, 2026, in St. Joseph, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce practices during NFL football training camp Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in St. Joseph, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce stretches during NFL football training camp Friday, July 31, 2026, in St. Joseph, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (87), and wide receiver Rashee Rice (4) walk to NFL football training camp Friday, July 31, 2026, in St. Joseph, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

CAIRO (AP) — Rescuers in Yemen pulled more bodies from the rubble Wednesday of a prison run by Iran-backed Houthi rebels that was hit in a deadly airstrike earlier this week, as an escalation between the rebels and a Saudi-led coalition threatened Yemen's fragile ceasefire.

The renewed fighting is also threatening global oil shipments as the Houthis target shipping and oil infrastructure that’s helping keep oil flowing through the Red Sea while the U.S.-Iran war has throttled shipments through the key Strait of Hormuz on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.

The prison in Hazm, the Jawf provincial capital, collapsed on Monday when coalition strikes hit the area, killing at least 23 people, including the four whose bodies were found on Wednesday.

It wasn't immediately known how many people were in the prison at the time of the strikes, which also left seven injured.

Following the strike on Monday, the Houthis retaliated on Tuesday with attacks on southern Saudi cities. The coalition early Wednesday responded with more airstrikes, targeting Houthi military facilities in Jawf and Marib provinces.

Hassan Saboula, director of Jawf's civil defense agency, said a child was among the 23 killed on Monday and that rescue teams were still searching for seven missing from the attack.

The identities of those killed have yet to be determined, al-Masirah satellite news channel cited Saboula as saying. Among the seven injured was a woman who was visiting her husband, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry.

In a statement Wednesday, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the prison strike was carried out by an F15-SA Saudi aircraft. He said the aircraft took off from King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, the kingdom's fifth-largest city, at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, hit the prison and returned to the base 15 minutes later.

The Saudi government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The rebels said they targeted the base on Tuesday, as part of their strikes on several cities in southern Saudi Arabia.

Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern stronghold and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee southward and then into exile in Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi-led coalition entered the Yemen war the following year in an attempt to restore the government. The war has killed at least 150,000 people, according to U.N. estimates, and at times pushed the country to the brink of famine.

The escalation between the rebels and the coalition started when the Houthis attempted in July to fly a plane from Tehran, Iran's capital, to Sanaa, the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital, challenging a decade-long air and naval blockade by the coalition. The coalition struck the runway in Sanaa, preventing the flight from landing.

The Houthis have since targeted Saudi Arabia and attacked Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. On Tuesday, they hit several Saudi oil facilities where some operations have since been temporarily suspended, according to the Saudi Energy Ministry.

Also, the rebels have been attacking Saudi-allied government forces on multiple fronts within Yemen. However, government forces turned the tide earlier this month, striking Houthi positions on the Red Sea, on Yemen’s western coast.

Before the Jawf prison strike, the violence in Yemen killed at least 194 people between Aug. 23 and Sept. 5, and wounded over 880, according to the World Health Organization. More than 21,000 people have been displaced.

The escalation shattered a four-year truce that had largely halted the fighting in the civil war.

People read a newspaper to follow the war news at a shop in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

FILE - A Houthi Shiite rebel mans a machine gun mounted on a military truck in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, Oct. 20, 2014. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File)