Maya Benberry: The Ex Travis Kelce Met On A Reality TV Show

Before Swifties started tuning in to the Kelce brothers' "New Heights" podcast in hopes of getting an update on Travis Kelce's burgeoning romance with Taylor Swift, the E! network realized that the NFL tight end's love life could be a valuable source of entertainment. Thus, the reality dating competition "Catching Kelce" was born. The winner, Maya Benberry, would eventually find herself on the wrong side of Swifties.

On the 2016 series, 50 contestants — one from each U.S. state — vied for Kelce's affection. Before the eliminations began, Kelce commended the women for being fearless while talking to them like he was trying to get his teammates hyped ahead of a game. "The courage that it takes to come out here to try and pursue love, it means more than you can imagine to me. This is real life. I'm dedicated to finding the girl of my dreams," he said. But on "The Pivot Podcast," he confessed that the real reason he agreed to do the show was for the money. While chatting with "The Hills" star Kristin Cavallari on her "Let's Be Honest" podcast in September 2023, the Kansas City Chiefs player also admitted, "It was probably after the first or second day filming that I was like, 'Yeah, there's really nothing here, but we can make a show out of it for sure.'" 

Despite realizing that there was zero potential for a real love connection, Kelce still had to pick a winner, and Benberry hasn't let us forget that it was her.

Maya Benberry decided to audition for "Catching Kelce" after learning about the series' casting call from an actor friend. However, she didn't plan on leaving the show with a boyfriend. "Girls like me never really make it far in competitions like that so I only packed a 1 weeks worth of things because I knew I would be going home," she told Sarah Scoop.

In her YouTube Q&A about her time on the show, Benberry revealed that packing too light wasn't her only problem. What she disliked most about filming the show was that contestants weren't allowed to have phones or other devices with internet access. "I don't like not knowing what's going on in the world," she said, adding, "I've never been without music, so that to me was driving me insane."

Benberry and the other contestants also weren't allowed to leave the house. "It's kind of like a jail in a way," she said. This rule intensified their rivalry not just because they were cooped up together with few sources of entertainment; the only way they could leave was if Travis Kelce invited them on one of his group dates. But despite what viewers at home saw, the contestants didn't just spend their time away from Kelce stirring up drama. "I was always in the kitchen, so I ate a lot of junk food," said Benberry. "... I drank white wine with Lexi [Noel], and we gossiped about our lives. Or I took naps."

While discussing "Catching Kelce" during a January 2017 appearance on "The Dan Patrick Show," Travis Kelce said, "No, I did not find love." However, he didn't dump Maya Benberry as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. Ahead of the premiere, he confirmed to E! News that he and Benberry were still happily dating. But because the identity of the winner had to remain a secret until the finale, the couple couldn't go out and have a good time together whenever they wished. "We have to be mindful of where we go, who we're going to be seen in front of with. It's a little difficult right now," he said.

The secrecy sometimes sucked the romance right out of being in a new relationship. "He would always have to go to dinner and then bring me leftovers," Benberry said in her YouTube Q&A. She and Kelce eventually decided to risk venturing outside together. "I wore a hoodie and sunglasses and baggy clothes," she recalled.

Benberry fondly reminisced about one outing in Los Angeles that began with dinner at Nobu. The couple's ride from the restaurant to a movie theater was even a fun part of the experience. "We had a singing contest type thing in the Uber," Benberry said. Their night ended with Benberry convincing Kelce to watch "The Invitation" even though he dislikes horror movies. "I think that was one of my favorite dates, because it was just full of laughter," she said.

During her December 2016 YouTube Q&A, Maya Benberry said that she and Travis Kelce had called it quits. However, she revealed that they were still on friendly terms at that time. "I feel like right now our relationship is the best it's ever been," she shared. But when she spoke to Sarah Scoop two months later, she said their friendship was no longer intact.

Benberry explained that she had been bombarded with hateful messages from "Catching Kelce" viewers, many of which were racist in nature. In an example that she shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, one person also dropped the c-word and called her a "wh*re" multiple times. Benberry claimed that Kelce refused to defend her from the cruel trolls. "He didn't want his fans to give him backlash for addressing all of the hatred and racism," she told Sarah Scoop. "His response was, 'Maya you're a strong Black confident woman and America wouldn't care what my white a** would have to say.'"

Left to fend for herself, Benberry's course of action wasn't to shut the trolls up by shutting down all of her social media accounts. Instead, she used the platforms to do everything she could to change people's perceptions of her. "I [became] determined to work my butt off to rebrand myself," she said. Once she controlled the narrative, the brand ambassador was able to show companies that she was not the villain portrayed on "Catching Kelce," and she started getting job offers.

Maya Benberry told Sarah Scoop that she was done looking for love on television after her experience on "Catching Kelce," but in 2018, she appeared on "Ex on the Beach." Viewers learned a lot about Benberry's relationship history when a trio of her exes showed up to see if they could stir up some old feelings — and one of them also stirred up a lot of trouble. The guy in question was Kareem Peterson, who used to play defensive back for Western Kentucky University. On the MTV reality series, Benberry learned the terrible truth that their relationship had started like the plot of a '90s teen comedy (or the One Direction fanfic "After"): with a bet. She also discovered that Peterson had told one of her housemates that she had an STD, which was just a vicious rumor.

Benberry apparently has a type; one of her other exes was University of Kentucky cornerback J.D. Harmon. The third was her college boyfriend, Perez Corothers. Instead of rekindling her romance with one of these former flames, Benberry found a new spark with "Are You the One?" star Malcolm Drummer. During the "Ex on the Beach" reunion special, viewers learned that their relationship got serious enough that they moved in together after filming wrapped. However, Benberry dumped Drummer when she suspected that he was being unfaithful. "I was just doubting the relationship," he said. "I'm not gonna lie. I turned her kinda into a little monster."

After Travis Kelce was linked to Taylor Swift in September 2023, Maya Benberry swiftly decided to insert herself into that narrative. First, she reportedly liked and later unliked an Instagram comment in which an anti-Swiftie rated the pop star a 5 and described her as "a FRAIL GAIL." She then issued a warning for Swift via the Daily Mail: "Like the saying always goes, once a cheater, always a cheater." Benberry also did a little damage control after her seemingly shady IG like by claiming that she had Swift's best interests at heart. "Taylor seems like such a fun girl with a beautiful spirit so I wish her the best of luck but I wouldn't be a girls' girl if I didn't advise her to be smart!" she said.

Benberry scored another interview with "Inside Edition." Evidently, her honeyed words had done little to assuage the outrage of Swifties; she underestimated who she was dealing with and wasn't going to get off that easily. "Swifties are aggressive. Very negative, very hypocritical," she said. "It's really crazy to me that someone that I think is positive and really nice has such a negative and angry fan base." Benberry insisted that she wasn't bitter about Kelce and Swift's relationship but had to remind everyone, "I had him first." She didn't badmouth Swift, but she likely still had Swifties seeing red when she attacked Kelce's character. "I feel like Travis is a narcissist. So, most narcissists don't change," Benberry said.