Before the friendship bracelet and the Taylor Swift headlines, Travis Kelce had a dating story with a plot twist: part of it played out on television.
This countdown brings together five women from that pre-Swift story. It is not a list of five confirmed ex-girlfriends. Three were on-camera dates or finalists on E!’s 2016 dating show Catching Kelce; two were women Kelce publicly dated beyond the show. We ranked the moments by how much they reveal about the story, not by anyone’s importance or the seriousness of a relationship. Kelce and Swift began dating in 2023.
These are AI-generated editorial composites of Travis Kelce and the people discussed, not documentary photographs of specific dates or events. Artistic likenesses should not be treated as proof of a relationship; the linked reporting is the source for each claim. A televised date is not evidence of an off-camera relationship.
#5: Avery Schlereth — a Hollywood hot-dog date
Status: on-camera dating-show finalist, not a documented girlfriend.
Avery, representing Colorado, made it to the final four on Catching Kelce. Her standout TV moment was a late-night VIP date at a Hollywood hot-dog stand. E!’s recap described the outing as playful, and its later final-four coverage showed that she remained a serious contender on the show.
That is the important distinction: the public record supports an on-screen date and a place in the competition. It does not establish that Avery and Kelce were a couple after cameras stopped rolling.
#4: Lauren Schwab Donahue — the connection behind the scenes
Status: on-camera dating-show finalist, not a documented girlfriend.
Lauren represented Missouri and also reached the show’s final four. Years later, she told The Kansas City Star that she felt a real connection with Kelce and thought viewers saw only part of their conversations. She recalled that their mothers met while the show was being filmed, a detail that made the experience feel more personal to her than the edited episodes suggested.
Her account is valuable because it is her perspective, not a claim that the two became a couple. The show put relationships under bright lights; it could not tell us what happened off camera unless the people involved did.
#3: Kayla Nicole — the five-year, on-and-off relationship
Status: publicly documented ex-girlfriend.
Kayla Nicole, a sports broadcaster and media personality, was Kelce’s longest publicly documented pre-Swift partner. They dated on and off from 2017 to 2022, a span of about five years. Unlike the TV finalists, their relationship existed in public life long after Catching Kelce ended.
Nicole later spoke publicly about the intense online attention that followed Kelce’s relationship with Swift. Her own work and voice should not disappear into someone else’s timeline. The takeaway here is straightforward: a long relationship is part of the record, but private reasons for its ending are not ours to invent.
#2: Veronica Harwood — the finalist who nearly won
Status: dating-show runner-up, not a documented girlfriend.
Veronica, who represented New Jersey, made it to the last two contestants. She was a Philadelphia Eagles fan, which gave the football-family subplot an extra wrinkle: Travis’s brother Jason played for the Eagles and told local radio he had been pulling for her.
After the finale, Veronica told CBS Philadelphia that she was upset when Kelce sent her home. The interview makes the TV stakes feel human, but the outcome is clear: she was a finalist who dated Kelce during the competition, not the person he chose to continue with afterward.
#1: Maya Benberry — the reality-TV pick who became a real girlfriend
Status: Catching Kelce winner and publicly documented ex-girlfriend.
Kelce chose Kentucky contestant Maya Benberry over Veronica in the 2016 finale. Here is the twist that separates Maya from the other televised dates: the two continued dating beyond the show. Kelce later told ESPN they had broken up in early December 2016.
That makes Maya one of the two documented relationships in this five-person countdown, not merely a finalist. E! revisited the show years later and confirmed both the final choice and the split months afterward. The television ending was not a forever ending—but it was a real chapter in Kelce’s dating history before Swift.
The surprise is the difference between a date and an ex
This is why a simple “five ex-girlfriends” headline would be wrong. Avery, Lauren, and Veronica were televised dating-show contenders; Maya and Kayla were documented partners beyond the competition. We left unconfirmed romance rumors out of the countdown.
Sources and scope: The show’s own final-four coverage, first-hand interviews with Lauren and Veronica, Kelce’s 2017 ESPN interview, and reporting on his relationship with Kayla informed this article. Checked September 15, 2026.
