The on-air reporter and record-breaking tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs started dating in 2017 and had an on-and-off relationship for five years.

After rumors spread about their breakup, including claims they separated for financial reasons, the Ohio native cleared things up during an interview on The Pivot Podcast in January 2023.

“Don’t buy into that s—,” Kelce told the hosts.

Kelce is now in a relationship with Taylor Swift, and Nicole has been focused on “moving forward” with her life. This has included unfollowing friends Brittany and Patrick Mahomes on Instagram.

She graduated from Pepperdine University

Nicole has had an interest in sports long before meeting Kelce and even studied the field. She shared a “friendly reminder” on her Instagram in 2018, telling her followers that she graduated from Pepperdine University in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

“Hosting is where my heart is,” she wrote in a caption for a video of herself wearing a Lakers jersey while reporting outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

She’s an on-air sports journalist After graduating from Pepperdine, Nicole got hosting jobs at sports media outlets like ESPN and Barstool Sports, among others. She made a name for herself by reporting courtside at NBA games and covering NFL games on the sidelines. Nicole has also reported on entertainment news.

She interviewed Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler for Global Grind during their 2017 press tour for The House and Sterling K. Brown during his 2019 press tour for Angry Birds 2.

In addition to her career in media, Nicole has worked as a model and represents several fashion brands, including Revolve, Crocs, and Savage X Fenty.

Nicole shares her work on her Instagram, where she also posts about her passion for fitness and exercising. She runs a fitness brand called Strong Is Sexy.

Both of Them met on Instagram

While it’s not clear when Nicole and Kelce first met, Nicole previously shared that they initially connected through Instagram. “He had been following me and insta-flirting for a few months,” she revealed in a now-deleted Instagram Story captured by TMZ.

“All double taps and no dm. Soooo after a little liquid courage and a pep talk from @iqueenb (something along the lines of ‘WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR’) I dm’d him on New Years.”

She had an on-again, off-again relationship with Kelce
After their first Instagram DMs, Kelce and Nicole started dating in 2017. Over the next few years, they broke up and got back together multiple times.

In August 2020, the couple split for the first time. Kelce confirmed their breakup after fans speculated about it when Nicole deleted pictures of him from her Instagram a week earlier.

The confirmation came along with rumors that Kelce cheated on Nicole with a “Becky,” which he denied in a now-deleted tweet. “This is fake news… a lie… and not why Kayla and I broke up,” Kelce wrote on Twitter, according to a screenshot from TMZ. “Take all your hatred somewhere else please.”

A few months later, in November, they got back together. Kelce confirmed their reconciliation when he referred to Nicole as “my girlfriend” during an Instagram Live with WNBA player Chiney Ogwumike. “She’s the best,” Kelce said about Nicole. “She’s the absolute best.”

In May 2022, the couple broke up again. At the time, Barstool Sports claimed that the reason for their split was that Kelce made Nicole pay for “half of everything” during their relationship.

However, during an interview with The Pivot Podcast in January 2023, Kelce denied being “too cheap,” adding, “don’t buy into that s—.” He continued, “I would never say that I was supporting her. She had a very financially stable life and what she was doing in her career.”

He added, “But you’ve got to be crazy if you’d think I would never helped or gave her a couple thousand to grab some food or she gave me some money to go get some food… we were in a relationship for five years. A hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there wasn’t even thought about.”

She has stayed friends with a few NFL WAGS

While dating Kelce, Nicole became friends with many NFL wives and girlfriends. She has stayed friends with some of them, but had issues with others.

In October 2023, fans noticed that Nicole unfollowed Kelce’s teammate Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany, on Instagram. This happened after Brittany went out with Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, for dinner in New York City along with Blake Lively and Sophie Turner.

As rumors spread that a falling out had happened between the two friends, Nicole told PEOPLE that “the reality” of their situation is more complicated — and that she had talked privately with Brittany about it.

“That’s a lot of history and friendship there, that doesn’t change overnight,” she said. “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.”

Before Super Bowl LVIII, Nicole met up with some wives of San Francisco 49ers players. Fans thought this was a message aimed at Kelce since the Chiefs were playing the 49ers in the game.

She Speaks Her Truth on Her Platform

On Oct. 9, Nicole shared a thoughtful message in a video posted to Instagram. She wrote the letter to Black girls in response to the “backlash” she has received from online trolls due to her past relationship with Kelce.

“It’s always been really important for me to use my platform, not to create division, but to elevate and unite women, Black women specifically,” she said in the video before reading her message.

“Dear Black girl, they may call you a traitor for falling in love. You’ll hope the ones closest will protect you, but you will quickly find out that people don’t protect what they don’t value. They’ll say you’re too much, too provocative, too boisterous, too outspoken, and in the same breath, tell you that you aren’t enough.”

Nicole continued, “They’ll say you deserve the backlash and embarrassment. Because of your Blackness, you should have known better. They’ll even try to tie your value to your net worth. But Black girl, please remember your value lies elsewhere. Your value is deep within your heart.”

She has her fitness brand

In October 2023, Nicole told PEOPLE that she was “very excited” to relaunch her fitness brand, Tribe Therepe. The brand is focused on “feel-good fitness” by combining the tools she learned in therapy with the workout routines she shares with her followers.

“It’s focusing on the mental health component of working out, which is really, really important for me and really resonates with me, and really just encouraging people to mentally take care of themselves,” she explained, adding, “I think that when your mind is in a healthy place, your body will follow.”

After her “major breakup” and “major life change,” Nicole said she “lost a substantial amount of weight within a very short amount of time” and was struggling with sleep and eating.

“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,'” Nicole admitted. “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.”

She is “done” dating athletes

Nicole shared in an interview on the Behind the Likes podcast in January 2024 that she is now interested in dating “men in positions of power” who are not athletes.

“I’ll never say never, but I fully, wholeheartedly believe that I am out of the athlete stage,” she said. “I do think that I am attracted to men in positions of power, and I also think that those types of men are attracted to me.”

She added that she would still enjoy attending sports games with her future partner and sharing that interest with them.

“I would love to date an executive of a record label or a movie producer so that we can go to the sporting events,” she said. “Let date night be courtside at the Laker game; that’s my kind of guy.”