Travis Kelce and Colin Jost have officially formed the unofficial “plus one fraternity,” and the membership requirements are pretty simple: marry — or in Kelce’s case, get engaged to — one of the most famous women on the planet, then learn to laugh about it.
The Kansas City Chiefs tight end and the “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update host swapped notes on life as the lesser-known half of a power couple on the May 13, 2026 episode of the “New Heights” podcast, which Kelce co-hosts with his brother Jason Kelce. Their famous partners? Just a couple of small-time entertainers named Taylor Swift and Scarlett Johansson.
The conversation, which quickly turned into a friendly therapy session about celebrity-adjacent life, gave fans a rare and warm glimpse into how two very public men handle being the “and guest” on the red carpet.
Welcome to the Plus One Fraternity
Kelce wasted no time getting to the heart of the matter, asking his guest point-blank, “How nice is it to be the less famous person in the relationship?”
Jost’s answer was about as concise as it gets: “Huge relief. Really.”
Kelce, who got engaged to Swift earlier this year, said he’s leaned all the way into his “plus one” status. When Jost suggested the two could commiserate about life alongside superstar partners, the NFL star laughed and replied, “I’m on the team. I’m here for it.”
It’s the kind of self-aware humor that’s helped both men navigate a spotlight that, technically, isn’t even pointed at them.
Why Jost Gets Approached More Than ScarJo
Here’s a fun wrinkle in the celebrity equation: Jost, 43, said fans actually approach him more often than they approach his wife, the Marvel and “Black Widow” star. The reason, he explained, comes down to the power dynamic of fame itself — the bigger the star, the less approachable they seem.
“It’s really funny because I’m probably almost approached more because she’s less approachable,” Jost explained. “Because I’m on TV. I’m in their living room, so they’re just like, ‘Hey, what’s up man? How’s it going?'”
Johansson, he added, has reached a level of fame so stratospheric that some fans simply refuse to believe it’s actually her. Jost recalled standing at passport checks where agents have stared directly at his wife’s passport — her name, her face — and still asked if anyone has ever told her she looks like Scarlett Johansson.
His takeaway? In their minds, “it would be weirder if it was her.”
The Strange Side Effects of Superstardom
Jost, who married Johansson in 2020 and welcomed son Cosmo with her in 2021, said there’s at least one consistent downside to dining out with one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood: the food order is almost guaranteed to be wrong.
When Johansson steps up to order a sandwich, he explained, the person taking the order tends to get so flustered by who’s standing in front of them that they forget to actually, you know, write down the sandwich. The result is usually a mystery meal with all the ingredients scrambled — or, as Jost put it, sometimes just “bread and just, like, a pickle.”
It’s the kind of detail that probably resonates with Kelce, whose own outings with Swift tend to attract a similar tornado of attention. Cosmo, now 4, is growing up in the middle of that whirlwind, though his parents have largely kept him out of the public eye.
A Comedian’s Material Problem
Being married to a global icon has even reshaped Jost’s stand-up act. As a comedian, he said, the easy material — riffing on dating, marriage, or the everyday friction of domestic life — is essentially off the table when your wife is Scarlett Johansson.
The “she’s nagging me” bit, a stand-up staple for generations of comics, doesn’t really land when the “she” in question is an Oscar nominee and a Marvel headliner. Audiences, Jost suggested, aren’t exactly inclined to take his side. The whole genre, he joked, has basically been eliminated from his routine.
Still, both men made clear on the May 13, 2026 episode that they wouldn’t trade their respective spots in the celebrity ecosystem. Jost called the experience “really kind of awesome,” and Kelce, fresh off his engagement to Swift, sounded genuinely delighted to compare notes with someone who understands exactly what it’s like to walk a red carpet and hear the screams aimed squarely past your shoulder.
For both the tight end and the Weekend Update anchor, the takeaway from their May 13, 2026 chat seemed simple enough: when your partner is the main event, the smartest play is to grab a seat, cheer them on, and enjoy the slightly easier walk through the airport.