Kayla Nicole said absolutely nothing in the wake of rumors that Travis Kelce was dating Taylor Swift. Social media decided to have her name trending for multiple days as she went dark on her platforms.

Then, she finally decided to stop being quiet.

Kayla Nicole released a powerful letter on Instagram addressed to black women.

There were plenty of people applauding Nicole for standing up for herself amid all the unwarranted backlash.

This week, Nicole was at the Renaissance Woman panel at Advertising Week in New York and explained why she decided to speak up.

“This was just kind of like a media storm if you will and my name was being brought in it every day. My comments, my DMs were flooded by it, and the narrative, I had no control over at this point,” she explained, via New York Post. “As someone who is a host, who wants to interject and wants to speak up, I found myself really just silencing myself, keeping the peace, keeping quiet, trying to make sure that everybody else in this scenario was OK, and I just kind of hit a point where I had to ask myself like, ‘OK, the silence that you’re keeping and keeping the peace for everyone else, but what about the peace within you?’”

Kayla said she wanted to speak up to provide a voice for others feeling a similar way.

“It’s hard, it’s judgmental, it’s critical, but at the end of the day, I’m a woman and I’m learning, I’m breathing and I’m healing, and it’s a transformative journey. I have a lot of eyes on me, but I feel like it’s not a singular experience. So, I wanted to really encourage myself, but any other woman that might feel the same way.”

Not many know this about her, but Nicole is a fitness influencer with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ brother, Jackson Mahomes, showed his support with heart emojis in the comments in her original video. He seems to be her only friend left from the Mahomes family as she has since unfollowed Patrick and his wife Brittany in the aftermath of him dating Taylor Swift.

Kelce and Nicole started dating in 2017. Over the course of their relationship, Kelce and Nicole split publicly more than once. In May 2022, the couple broke up for a final time.