It’s a side gig for them.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Gareth Cattermole, Arnold Jerocki, Michael Buckner/Variety)
Cardi B is the latest high-profile singer to gain admission to the Wives and Girlfriends (WAGs) of NFL players club by virtue of her romance with now–baby daddy Stefon Diggs of the New England Patriots. The item went official in May 2025 after months of speculation over a romance between the rapper and the wide receiver that might have gestated during the former’s overly public divorce with Offset of Migos fame. (Those TMI tweets … the North remembers!) Between Cardi B’s drama and all of Taylor Swift’s horny lyrics, pop girls are making their presence in the stadium known this season.
The celebrity WAG isn’t just hopping on a trend. Madison Beer recently made her first official appearance with boyfriend Justin Herbert, a quarterback for the Los Angeles Chargers. Part-time pop girlie (with two songs in the Spotify billions club) and full-time actor Hailee Steinfeld married Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen in May after two years of dating. Normani is engaged to DK Metcalf, a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Though not an NFL WAG, Megan Thee Stallion joined the ranks of NBA Wives and Girlfriends after publicly confirming her relationship with Dallas Mavericks shooting guard Klay Thompson over the summer.) These are serious, public relationships with some of the most famous figures in the game.
Taylor Swift isn’t the first to pioneer new heights in football wifedom. There have been WAGs with just as much if not more fame than their players before her. R&B diva Ciara was the poster pop-star WAG after marrying Super Bowl champion Russell Wilson in 2016. But the media frenzy around Swift’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has put even more attention on the stars on the sidelines. Their courtship — consisting of podcast confessions, meeting the parents in VIP boxes, and navigating paparazzi — was beamed into TV screens on various Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights as she attended Kelce’s games with her squad in tow. Two years after the football star gave her a friendship bracelet with his number on it, the couple are engaged, and the public is enduring a cringe ode to Kelce’s massive redwood. Not to mention he has won three Super Bowls.
Despite what misogynistic backlash from some football fans may claim, the performers haven’t yet colonized our nation’s most popular sport — although they should. Imagine tuning into an NFL game and being greeted with Cardi B’s commentary about how weird and suspicious a play was before special guest Megan Thee Stallion appears for an impromptu performance of “WAP.” The NFL should be lucky these women are entering fame-gap relationships — it’s only making the sport as a whole more popular, introducing it to audiences that truly couldn’t have cared less. So far, there is a correlation between female viewership spikes and Swift’s attendance at Chiefs games, meaning an Über-famous WAG could be driving up ratings, though the data is inconclusive thus far, per the New York Times. Official number crunchers didn’t account for Chiefs ticket sales and overall consumer engagement (boost in merch sales, marketing for fashion brands) in their findings, so Swift and her peers might be drawing attention to the NFL in ways not yet known to man. The sport has signaled their intentions to hold on to female viewers ensnared by the Taylor Swift Effect. And, in the case of Cardi B specifically, at least she’ll know where her man is during football season.
Related