As Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce gear up to plan their fairy tale wedding, a prenuptial agreement could also be in the cards.
“I think that they’re both doing really well,” divorce attorney and TrustedPrenup.com cofounder James Sexton, who has no affiliation to the engaged couple, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, September 18. “There’s a lot of incentive in a situation like that for there to be clarity about what would happen if the marriage eventually ends.”
Billionaire Swift, 35, got engaged to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Kelce, also 35, in August after two years of dating. Kelce has also raked in millions of dollars, though less compared to his fiancée, with Sexton joking that Swift is presumably worth “10 and a half Travises.”
“The worst time to learn how to fight is when you’re in a fight, like, you want to learn before. So, same thing with a prenup,” he explained to Us. “You should be having these conversations when you’re in that great, happy space.”
While Swift and Kelce have not disclosed whether they intend to sign a prenup, Sexton broke down the considerations to include should they agree to the document.
“Some of the key things that any prenup has to have is some basic financial disclosure so that people understand what they’re waiving rights to, or what it is that each person has — both assets and liabilities,” Sexton explained to Us. “With a prenup, you’re thinking about a future that we don’t really know exactly what it’s going to be. I think you have to create categories, and those are, like, rule sets that people can work within when they’re making decisions during the marriage about finances.”
According to Sexton, he would encourage Swift and Kelce to follow a “Yours, Mine and Ours” model.
“[It says], ‘If it’s in my name, whether it’s an asset or a liability, it’s mine. If it’s in your name, asset or liability, it’s yours. And then, if it’s in our joint names, we just divide it 50/50,’” he said. “That gives a couple the control and the opportunity to have conversations about, ‘Hey, I just got this big deal in and I’m going to put this much in my account. I’ll put this much in your account. Let’s put this much in joint accounts,’ and it encourages that kind of active communication that is really good for a relationship.”
For Swift and Kelce specifically, their respective career earnings would fit within the “mine” category.
“I mean, they’re both in very unique situations because Taylor, aside from being a very talented musician and performer and touring and all the things that come from that, [is a] songwriter [and] owns her catalog. [She] is going to continue to be prolific in making music the way she does,” Sexton told Us of Swift, who purchased the masters to her early discography this summer. “She has a lot of current interests and a lot of future interests. Travis is in a different position.”
Ed Kelce gracefully answered an awkward question about whether Travis Kelce would sign a prenup if he married girlfriend Taylor Swift. During the Friday, January 26, episode of Audacy’s 92.3 The Fan radio show, Ed was asked about Travis’ financial plans in the event he and Swift, both 34, get engaged. “I think you get […]
Sexton acknowledged that, while Kelce has developed a “growing presence” as a media personality and a brand spokesperson, most of his income stems from his NFL contract.
“I’ve represented a number of NFL players, and they have a very short career because it’s such a physically demanding sport, and they’re so prone to injury because of the physical nature of it,” the lawyer said on Thursday. “It’s really important for that person to protect those things. So, I think they both have good incentives to do it, and I think, for any couple, wherever they’re at in their journey, it’s just a good conversation to be having.”
He continued, “You know, one of the reasons people end up in my office for divorces is because they can’t have hard conversations. Conversations are like a muscle, like, if you work it, it gets stronger and you get better at it. So, I think even just talking about, ‘Hey, what prenup makes sense for us? What makes you feel safe?’ … I think it’s really important for people to have conversations about [that.]”
While Sexton hopes Swift and Kelce “live happily ever after,” he also acknowledged that they could still protect individual assets if there’s not a prenup in place.
“There are still financial management practices people can engage in during a marriage that help protect separate property [and] things you owned before the marriage,” he told Us. “I think that in Taylor’s situation, specifically, she has the ability to negotiate separate contracts later in a relationship.”
Sexton, for his part, has worked as a divorce lawyer for over 25 years, which inspired the launch of TrustedPrenup.com.
“There was a period of time where prenups were really something that people believed, like only the wealthy needed, but the truth is, it’s actually something that for people on the come up,” he told Us. “It’s actually something that should be very accessible for people. … It’s your relationship. It should be your rules. So Trusted Prenup was really created on the idea of ‘Let’s democratize prenups, let’s normalize the conversation and let’s also use prenups and the conversation about them as an entry point to talk about important things in an early stage of a relationship.’”
