Kayla Nicole and Kelce dated for three years before breaking up in 2022.
Travis Kelce's ex-girlfriend, Kayla Nicole, is finally answering a question that has been on the minds of many in the last several weeks: Why did she unfollow Brittany and Patrick Mahomes on Instagram?
In a new interview with People, the fitness guru, 31, said that she didn't expect her decision to unfollow the Chiefs quarterback, 28, and his wife, 28, to be so highly publicized.
The reality, Nicole said, is that she decided it was officially time to move on a year and a half after she split from Kelce, 34 -- her on-and-off boyfriend of five years -- in May 2022.
"I still love my KC people and my KC community so much," Nicole said. "But for me in my life, I have to move forward and everyone has to respect that. And hopefully when they respect that, that means that they're no longer inserting me into things that do not involve me."
While Nicole said that she didn't want to get wrapped up in Kelce's current and very public relationship with superstar Taylor Swift, she did clarify that she felt the need to clear the air when it comes to the Mahomes situation.
"I do think it's important to publicly address this because I did publicly unfollow people," Nicole told the outlet. "The reality is I know these people in real life. And so, in real life, I've communicated to these people why I've had to publicly make the decisions that I made."
Nicole and Brittany became good friends while their significant others played together for the Kansas City Chiefs, with Nicole even helping Brittany to pick out a wedding dress.
The fitness and lifestyle content creator also attended Brittany's eight-person bachelorette party in Miami in February 2022, just months before Kelce and Nicole eventually split.
As for the future of their relationship and other existing friendships she made in Kansas City, Nicole said "the love is still there" but that due to the current landscape, she has to protect herself and her mental health.
"She knows that I love her," Nicole added. "That's a lot of history and friendship there, that doesn't change overnight. But publicly, because things are happening so quickly and so publicly, I have to protect myself. That's really all that is."
In another recent interview, Nicole talked openly about how she had to embrace therapy after a "major breakup" derailed her mental health.
"Just full transparency, I went through this major breakup, major life change, and I had lost a substantial amount of weight within a very short amount of time. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating. I was really abusing melatonin to sleep at night," she told People. "It was like I was working out, I was in really great shape, but I felt like s**t and I was sad, and I was having a hard time getting out of bed. It got to the point where I was like, 'Okay, what else can I possibly do?' So, I started to go to therapy."
The fitness influencer recalled how she was still posting fitness content but was in the worst mental state of her life at the time.
"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 shared. "My abs were amazing, I had a six-pack. And it was like, 'I had never felt so bad in my life.'"
She said she later realized after beginning therapy that: "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."
Nicole is now channeling that same energy into her new brand, Tribe Therepe, a health and wellness website.
"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," Nicole explains. "I think that when your mind is in a healthy place, your body will follow."
She has had to stay mentally fit since rumors began circulating in September that her ex-boyfriend had entered into a relationship with Swift, 33.
In the weeks that followed, some of the "Karma" singer's fans have flooded Nicole's Instagram page leaving behind comments spewing hate aimed at the fitness guru.
It has never been confirmed what led to Kelce and Nicole's final breakup in May 2022, however, the Chiefs star adamantly denies cheating rumors that have surrounded the split.
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