Prince William will skip Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s New York wedding, but appears on their New Heights podcast

Prince William is not expected to attend Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding Friday in New York City, Deadline reported on July 3, even as the couple’s wedding festivities were set to begin later that day at Madison Square Garden. The report described the heir to the British throne’s absence from the in-person celebration while portraying his participation in other public-facing moments tied to the event.

In the hours before the Madison Square Garden program was scheduled to start, Prince William made an unannounced appearance on the New Heights podcast hosted by Travis Kelce and his brother and former Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce, Deadline said. The appearance placed the royal heir in the orbit of two prominent American entertainers tied to the wedding, with the interview format centered on conversation rather than attendance.

Deadline said Prince William used the podcast appearance to talk about subjects including Swift’s Eras Tour and the World Cup, reflecting the breadth of mainstream interests that have surrounded both Swift’s music career and global sports. The report framed the engagement as a way for William to offer a “royal” presence around events associated with the wedding without traveling to the ceremony itself.

The wedding-related program at Madison Square Garden was described by Deadline as set for later Friday, with the couple’s profiles as a chart-topping pop star and a recent Super Bowl-winning NFL player also emphasized in the reporting. The announcement that William would not go to the wedding, alongside the earlier podcast appearance, underscored the distinction between ceremonial participation and media engagement.

Friday’s schedule also placed the royal appearance early enough to be associated with the lead-up to the event, rather than a post-event reaction. Deadline’s account did not describe the content of every exchange in detail, but it did specify the general topics of the podcast conversation and that the appearance was not formally announced in advance.

The report positions the podcast appearance as the key public-facing action by the Prince of Wales around the Swift-Kelce wedding timeline. It also indicates that, despite not attending the ceremony in New York, William’s involvement took the form of a recorded or broadcast entertainment media moment rather than a traditional royal stop at the venue.