We’ve mentioned Kayla Nicole a few times in the past month on this blog. Kayla dated Travis Kelce for about five years, and they broke up (I think) in December 2022. Travis spent much of this year single, and then he likely met Taylor Swift at some point over the summer and he’s been wooing her ever since. I bring up the timeline because there was absolutely no overlap in relationships and before Travis and Taylor started up, Kayla was simply minding her business. She has not bad-mouthed Travis or Taylor, even as Taylor’s unhinged fans began pouring scorn on her online and on social media. The only thing Kayla “did” was unfollow Brittany and Patrick Mahomes on Instagram once Travis and Taylor began dating. Kayla was tight with Brittany, and Patrick is Travis’s teammate and friend. Now Kayla has given an exclusive interview to People Mag about what’s been happening:

Why she unfollowed Brittany & Patrick Mahomes: Nicole exclusively tells PEOPLE that “the reality” of their situation is much more complex — and that she’s addressed the situation privately with Brittany. “I do think it’s important to publicly address this because I did publicly unfollow people. The reality is I know these people in real life. And so, in real life, I’ve communicated to these people why I’ve had to publicly make the decisions that I made.”

She has ongoing relationships with Travis’s friends: “To everyone it’s like, ‘Oh, you broke up a year ago,’ and that meant it’s like a light switch, you turn it on and off and everything goes dead and black and you don’t ever speak to anyone ever again. That’s not reality. I have ongoing relationships with all parties involved.” The content creator says she and Brittany “have had our conversations” recently. “She knows that I love her,” Nicole adds. “That’s a lot of history and friendship there, that doesn’t change overnight. But publicly, because things are happening so quickly and so publicly, I have to protect myself. That’s really all that is. The love is still there.”

She spent a lot of time in Kansas City: “I still love my KC people and my KC community so much. But for me in my life, I have to move forward and everyone has to respect that. And hopefully when they respect that, that means that they’re no longer inserting me into things that do not involve me.”

She’s launching her fitness brand, Tribe Therepe: “Just full transparency, I went through this major breakup, major life change, and I had lost a substantial amount of weight within a very short amount of time. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating. I was really abusing melatonin to sleep at night… I’m posting content and people are like, ‘You look so good. Tell us your tricks. You look amazing.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m miserable. I’m miserable. I’m depressed.’ My abs were amazing, I had a six-pack. And it was like, ‘I had never felt so bad in my life.’ So, I started going to therapy and quickly realized, okay, it’s one thing to be physically fit, but it’s another thing to be mentally fit. You could be in the best shape of your life, but mentally, if you are not a healthy person, it’s not going to feel good.”

[From People]

There’s this habit in modern pop culture to turn everything into a beef or a drama, and the fact that Kayla simply “unfollowing” a few friends on social media turned into a major story is evidence of that. What she did was perfectly reasonable and an effort to protect herself emotionally. She’s basically telling her friends: I love you guys but I don’t want to see photos of you hanging out with my ex and his new girlfriend. She needed more distance and that’s fine. I would have done the same. It actually shows her maturity.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.