On September 15, 2026, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick released his memoir, The Perilous Fight. But the memoir quickly drew attention for certain revelations, including one involving Taylor Swift, who is now married to Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce.
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Kaepernick played for the 49ers from 2011 to 2016. Of course, he rose to fame during these six years, particularly after taking over as the team’s starting quarterback in 2012 and leading the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII. However, that was also the time when, according to his memoir, his adoptive mother, Teresa, suggested he date the pop star, believing that the duo would be “perfect together.”
“When I was in the NFL, she told me that I should ask out Taylor Swift (long before Travis Kelce made his move),” Kaepernick wrote in his memoir before adding: “No slight to Taylor, but she was not my type.”
But according to former Cowboys player Dez Bryant, Kaepernick should have considered the fact that Swift is now married before mentioning her in his book.
“I’m surprised nobody caught onto this,” Bryant wrote in a now-deleted X post. “Why include Taylor Swift in your book? There were many ways you could have expressed your experience without mentioning her name knowing she married. We all know you did it for clickbait. The way you talk about the parents who helped put you in a position to succeed tells me you could never be trusted.
“If you felt like your parents whitewashed you..you could have had that discussion privately. Everything was fine when you were playing in the Super Bowl and making commercials.. Real issues do happen..but the way Kap is going about it makes him seem fake. Timing is everything. Everyday I’m in the defense of people who look like me. So when I see the Kap I’m speaking on it.. Cut that fro off bruh.. it’s cringe!”
Kaepernick used the pop star’s example to show that he and his parents were seldom on the same page. He claimed that they didn’t understand who he truly was. And the case with Swift wasn’t the end of it.
“I asked Crystal to the homecoming dance, a formal affair involving fancy gowns, tuxedos, and corsages,” Kaepernick wrote in his memoir. “We had a nice time at the dance. When I got the official portrait from that night, featuring me and Crystal posed up in that classic, airbrushed frame, my mother hid it away in the back of a drawer.
“My mother convinced me to ask Lindsay, the daughter of one of her friends, to the next formal dance. Lindsay was white. When I brought that picture home, my mother promptly plastered it on the wall for all to see. In her mind, Crystal was just a phase. Lindsay was the kind of girl I should want.”
Kelce entered Swift’s story years after Kaepernick’s mother suggested that Kaepernick ask the singer out. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end started dating Swift somewhere around 2023. And in the summer of 2026, the couple tied the knot in a pretty extravagant manner.
Meanwhile, Kaepernick began dating radio and television personality Nessa Diab in 2015. In 2022, the couple even welcomed a baby daughter.
While the Taylor Swift anecdote drew criticism, it forms part of a broader account of Kaepernick’s complicated relationship with his adoptive parents and his experience growing up in a white family. That’s the quiet ache of growing up as an outsider under his own roof.