Why Taylor Swift fans think she secretly appeared in ‘Happy Gilmore 2' with Travis Kelce
'So High School' of them.
Taylor Swift's fans have started a theory that the singer made a secret appearance in 'Happy Gilmore 2' with her boyfriend Travis Kelce.
The evidence? Netflix released a behind-the-scenes clip Wednesday from the scene where Kelce, 35, is approached by a bear — and some viewers think Swift, 35, is the person inside the animal suit.
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12 Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
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12 Fans think Taylor Swift is in this bear costume.
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The scene in question happens when Bad Bunny's character Oscar, a busboy, imagines his 'happy place,' wherein his abusive boss, played by Kelce, is tied to a pole and covered in honey while wearing nothing but a black apron.
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Kelce's character sees a bear coming towards him, ready to attack.
The Post has reached out to Swift's rep for comment.
12 Travis Kelce in a behind-the-scenes video from 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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12 Bad Bunny filming 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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12 The bear in 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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'They should've dressed Taylor as a bear for an epic surprise,' one fan wrote in the comments section of the clip. Netflix replied with the eyes emoji, giving credence to the Swifties' unconfirmed theory.
'Ya'll, i will NEVER NOT believe that bear was THE @taylorswift,' another fan said.
'I wonder if @taylorswift was in the bear costume. That would have been epic,' a different person wrote.
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12 A bear attacks Travis Kelce in 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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12 Bad Bunny and Travis Kelce in a scene from 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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'Taylor we know you're in the bear suit 😭,' someone else said.
A fifth fan commented, 'Who was the bear????? ….could it be….Tay….Tay.'
Swift shared a glowing review of Adam Sandler's 'Happy Gilmore' sequel last week.
12 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
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12 Travis Kelce on the set of 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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She posted the film's poster on her Instagram Stories and wrote, 'Happy Gilmore 2 had me cackling and cheering the whole movie! An absolute must watch, 13/10, go watch it on @netflix as soon as humanly possible 🍯.'
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The honey pot emoji was a clear reference to Kelce's role in the film.
At the 'Happy Gilmore 2' New York premiere on July 21, Sandler, 58, was asked about possibly including Swift in the movie
12 Adam Sandler in a behind-the-scenes clip from 'Happy Gilmore 2.'
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'We didn't want to bother Taylor. Just let Taylor entertain the world like she does,' he told 'Extra.'
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'I listened to 'All Too Well' three times in a row with my kid,' Sandler continued. 'She's done a lot for our planet, so we love her.'
12 Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce at the 2024 US Open Tennis Championships.
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The 'Lover' singer previously greeted Sandler and his daughters Sunny, 16, and Sadie, 19, at the premiere of her 'The Eras Tour' film in Los Angeles in Oct. 2023.
'Taylor is incredible,' Sandler recently told Entertainment Tonight. 'Taylor is so damn nice to my family and has always been. My kids have met Taylor a bunch of times over the years, and she's ridiculously nice to them and warm.'
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12 Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
Travis Kelce/Instagram
Swift has been dating Kelce since in the summer of 2023.
Last week, the NFL tight tend shared new photos of the couple from their 'adventures' together.
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'The Western people say we are porters,' said Dawa. 'This is not fair,' said Mingma. In their eyes, they were doing the same work as foreign guides, climbing the same mountains as clients. Why were they porters, and the Westerners guides and climbers? 'That's why we have to show something,' said Dawa. To prove that they had the skills to rival the world's best guides, Mingma and Dawa decided to climb all the 8,000-meter peaks. At the time, only the most dedicated mountaineers climbed all 14, and Mingma was the first Nepali to do so. The accomplishment gave the brothers major credibility, and inspired an idea. They would start their own company—and cut out the middleman. In 2010, they launched Seven Summit Treks, charging just $30,000 per person to climb Everest. Other Sherpa-led businesses followed, and over the next several years these companies outcompeted the old guard, benefiting from the ability to set lower prices as well as various upheavals in the climbing industry, as journalist Will Cockrell chronicled in his book, Everest, Inc. By 2019, Cockrell reported, Seven Summit was the largest taxpayer in Nepal's trekking and guiding industry. Today, Himalayan climbing archivist Billi Bierling calls Sherpas the 'bosses on the mountain,' estimating that they own 80 to 85 percent of the expedition market. While Sherpas of this generation were taking control of their industry, some were also falling in love with climbing, a sport most of their forebears saw as only a job; and slowly building visibility. By 2015, Sherpa climbers were making first ascents sans clients and promoting their feats on social media. In 2018, a Sherpa named Dawa Yangzum was sponsored by The North Face, albeit for guiding; she was the first Nepali woman to earn a certification from the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations. But the trend was turbocharged in 2019, when a Nepali British former special forces soldier, Nirmal 'Nims' Purja, climbed the 14 peaks in record time, using helicopters, bottled oxygen, and fixed ropes to accomplish in six months what had previously taken Korean climber Kim Chang-Ho nearly eight years to do (though Kim climbed without supplemental oxygen and kayaked and cycled to Everest Base Camp). Nims, who is not Sherpa, brought handheld cameras and broadcast his journey on Instagram, capturing footage that became a hit 2021 Netflix documentary. He leveraged his exploits to start his own guiding business and sign deals with Red Bull, Nike, and Bremont watches, and though his career is now plagued by accusations of sexual misconduct (which he's denied), he put the world on notice that when Nepalis didn't have to serve clients, they could be recognized as world-class climbers in their own right. (Meet the Sherpa bringing Wi-Fi to Everest.) Nima comes of age in these flush times, blessed with not just family money but also role models and next-level ambitions. Growing up in Kathmandu, Nima began telling his father in early adolescence that he wanted to become a professional athlete. 'The plan was always to do something big in life,' Nima said. 'It was always the plan.' Nima poses with Kami Rita Sherpa after the latter's 29th summit of Everest. Photograph by Manish Maharjan The lead-up to a major objective tends to be an ascetic time for athletes, when they retreat from the world and prepare. But Nima is trying to capitalize on his moment, and he kept a frenetic schedule in the few days before Manaslu, attending to small-time obligations ranging from a cricket game for the Nepal Premier League to an interview for an American friend's YouTube channel and an elaborate 20-person lunch with Jane Goodall. Nima's manager at the time, Asad Abid, was frustrated. He thought Nima was sinking too much time, for free, into engagements that didn't move him toward his ultimate goal, which is to get paid to climb by brands. Some companies have offered free gear, Abid said, 'but nobody's talking money.' The outdoor industry is dominated by Western brands, and Sherpas face racial and language differences that can make it difficult to secure endorsements. They also have to contend with a cultural and vocational challenge. The Sherpa community venerates climbers who have summited Everest 20 times or set records like Nima's, but climbing brands don't usually sponsor mountaineers who ply trade routes on fixed ropes in the commercial style, whether they're the Sherpa guides on those expeditions or the climbers who pay those guides and use bottled oxygen, as Nima did. Most professional climbers are instead alpinists, who are self-supported and travel light and fast. To inspire the climbing cognoscenti, and eventually earn sponsorships, an athlete must climb new routes or peaks in good style, meaning without bottled oxygen or fixed ropes—and achieve an ineffable X factor that can be hard to grasp for those born outside of alpinism's Eurocentric culture. 'You need to have been living and breathing climbing as a sport from a young age to understand what is considered an accomplishment,' Cockrell says. It's a daunting transition even for the most well-resourced young Sherpa, which is why Moro told me he felt the urgency to 'grab' the teen, as he put it, and mentor him, 'before he falls into the trap of becoming another famous 8,000-meter-peak collector.' In inviting Nima to Manaslu, Moro hoped both to teach skills and instill the kind of worldview he said Nima will need to make it as a professional adventurer. The leap that Nima needs to make from commercial mountaineering to alpinism could be years long. He'll have to learn skills like ice climbing and placing gear, alpinist and former North Face team manager Conrad Anker told me. He'll also likely have to travel to North America or Europe to train on rock and ice, as it takes days to approach most peaks in Nepal. And he'll have to develop an eye for identifying his own projects. But in the age of the athlete-influencer, there may be a different way for Nima, one modeled by Nepali climbers like Nims. Climbing purists said that Nims's feat was primarily one of logistics and marketing—he achieved a speed record he essentially invented, one utilizing every accoutrement from helicopters to bottled oxygen—yet he nonetheless circumvented the traditional path to stardom. Nima, too, seems to be betting on this model of building his brand alongside his bona fides. 'Climbing both [Everest and Lhotse] on the same day,' he wrote in April 2024 on Instagram, 'is almost unheard of, and I found myself doing it as the mountain spirits guided me.' Still, storytelling can go only so far. Nims's record was paradigm shifting, and the long process through which Dawa Yangzum obtained her IFMGA certification is widely respected in climbing. Nima may be able to find his own path to professional climbing. But if you want to climb for a brand like The North Face, Anker says, you have to 'climb hard.' (You can still climb Mount Everest. Here's how to do it responsibly.) As with many prodigies, it's hard to tell how much of Nima's ambition is innate versus inherited, the result of some subtle parental prodding. As Tashi drove Nima and me around Kathmandu in his leather-lined SUV one afternoon, the two took turns telling Nima's origin story, passing the ball to one another smoothly in the front seats. Tashi's support of Nima has been tireless and unconditional. When Nima wanted to become a professional soccer player, Tashi tried to link him up with an elite coach. When that fizzled, he took his son to the climbing gym. When Nima wanted to become a photographer, he took him trekking to shoot photos. Tashi, who at 39 wore thick-framed black glasses and a stylish fade, said, 'I bought, like, a Sony A7?' 'Sony A7, yeah,' Nima agreed with a chuckle, from the passenger seat. 'A Sony A7 for him, and several lenses,' Tashi continued. 'Then I took him to Kongma La Pass, right?' This is a multiday trek in Nepal. 'Just the two of us, yeah.' 'Just him and me,' Tashi agreed. 'I saw that he's very strong.' It was on this trek, when Nima was 15, that Tashi suggested it might be 'interesting,' as Nima recalled it, for him to climb the 14 peaks as a teenager. Nima went home and did his research, then told his dad, Let's do it. The father's idea had become the son's. Initially, the 14-peaks project was a creative, mostly selfish endeavor: Inspired by Asian American adventure photographer and National Geographic Explorer Jimmy Chin, Nima wanted to produce a documentary. But on his first climb, Manaslu, in September 2022, he saw something surprising. He never knew much about the family business, and had always assumed his father's clients must be elite-level athletes to climb big mountains. Now he saw that in fact, many of them were average, even slow. Meanwhile Sherpas outpaced everybody and carried their loads. Seeing their raw talent, he began to wonder why there was no world-famous Sherpa climber today. 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Afterward, he was depressed for months. 'I just felt very demotivated,' he said. 'Not just in climbing. In life itself.' It was during this time that he began to use the hashtag 'sherpapower.' He realized he wanted to be a voice for the Sherpa community. He wanted his people to feel that their lives had value beyond the measure of their wages. 'Let's say they make $4,000 a summit,' he said. 'I don't know if there's any job where you get paid this and it's so risky.' Sherpas 'literally feel' for their clients, he told me pointedly, sacrificing their own safety and even lives to help them summit. This kind of courage and loyalty, he said, 'is not something money can buy.' They deserved for their stories to be told, he thought—to be honored like heroes, not just paid like help. Over the years, Tashi has witnessed the death of many Sherpas like Lama, which is why he always told his own son that if he were to climb, he'd climb as an athlete, not a guide. If Nima was going to risk it all, he would risk it for his own dreams. Nima's climbing was nonetheless extremely stressful for Tashi and his wife, Leema. Tashi says he hid his worry—he didn't want to affect Nima's decision-making in the mountains—but behind the scenes he spun a protective web. He assigned one of his ace guides, Pasang Nurbu Sherpa, as Nima's climbing partner; he kept helicopters on standby while they climbed; he cut clients deals to beef up the man power on Nima's expeditions. On summit days, he didn't sleep, refreshing Nima's GPS tracker every 10 minutes. Whenever Tashi thought about calling his son back, he reminded himself, We are on a mission. (That's the word he uses, 'we.') 'I want to make him a super climber, super athlete,' he said. 'So I manage my emotions.' Tashi also wanted to shield Nima from another fraught aspect of the guiding business. Especially in its early years, Seven Summit was criticized for its safety record, and some said the company brought dangerously inexperienced guides and climbers onto the mountains. (The brothers acknowledged some growing pains but said they recruited many new Sherpas to the industry who are now trained and experienced, and train clients on lower peaks before they climb eight-thousanders.) In channeling Nima toward a different path, Tashi hoped to keep his son from the controversy that's dogged him and his family. 'He can have another type of job and professionalism as an athlete,' he said. Of course, Tashi could have encouraged his son to pursue a profession outside of climbing, as many Sherpas have urged their children to do. Any 8,000-meter peak can kill you, and the dangers are magnified in the winter, when temperatures plummet and avalanche risk increases. Going in alpine style removes the added security of fixed lines and bottled oxygen. The first time Moro attempted a winter alpine-style 8,000-meter ascent, an avalanche killed both his climbing partners. I asked Tashi what he'd say to parents who wonder how he can not only let his son do something so dangerous but also fund it. 'I think'—he said, pausing thoughtfully—'creating history is not normal. It's not simple.' Abid, Nima's former manager, offered his theory. 'I think Tashi is living vicariously through Nima,' he said. But when you're a parent whose life story is entangled within a generations-long struggle for equality, your children may serve as a proxy for more than your own unrealized ambitions. Tashi has seen so many strong Sherpa boys working for the glory of others, he told me, so much of his people's talent hired away. He always wanted to see one of those young athletes climb unencumbered. 'This is a totally different opportunity for the Sherpa community,' he said, 'and I really want to send my son in this way.' Annapurna was the first of all the eight-thousanders to be climbed, but it's also one of the deadliest— for every three climbers who stand on the summit, one will die trying to get there. Nima reached the peak in the spring of 2024 without the use of supplemental oxygen. Photograph by Manish Maharjan In Kathmandu in December, you can be seduced into believing winter won't kill you. The day that Nima left for his climb was like all the other days before it: sunny and mild, the smog-filled sky a dingy blue. I boarded an orange Heli Everest chopper with Nima, Moro, and Polish filmmaker Oswald Rodrigo Pereira, 40, their climbing partner. The plan was to fly into the Everest valley and trek five days to the Base Camp of Ama Dablam, a technical, 6,812-meter peak known as the Matterhorn of the Himalaya, where I'd catch a heli ride back. They'd climb Ama Dablam to acclimatize, then fly out to the Manaslu valley. The helicopter soared over green hills rippled with farming terraces, carved from the mountain like stadium steps. Snowcapped peaks lined the horizon, each big and beautiful enough to anchor a national park on its own. This was awe-inspiring stuff for most people, but for Nima, it was a commute. He'd fallen asleep. During the past few days in Kathmandu, I'd witnessed the muscle of Seven Summit firsthand. Everywhere I went, I bumped into smiling, clean-faced young men wearing company puffies and ball caps. Nima was cocooned within this universe, chauffeured and flanked constantly by the Sherpas in his father's employ. Does Nima fully understand what achieving his dream would require, from the hard work to the risktaking it would demand? He says he does, but for all his precociousness, here was an 18-year-old who still compared climbing to the epic adventures out of his favorite fantasy books. 'Winter expedition is like Lord of the Rings,' he said with exuberance, or 'When you read Harry Potter, it makes you excited. I feel like I'm in that life right now.' In both these stories, a hero—a chosen one—goes on a quest to save the people he loves. Harry Potter is destined by prophecy to save wizardkind; Frodo carries the Ring to save Middle Earth. Nima, too, sees himself as a messenger for his community. 'I think at the young age that he is, he already has a big burden on him, that he also imposes on himself,' Pereira later told me. In the helicopter, Nima woke up. We were wearing soundproof headsets, so he used his iPhone camera to show me Everest, zooming in on the snow-covered pyramid. Then he opened his notepad and typed me a message: 'The prince returns to the mountains.' Nima's first noncommercial expedition began smoothly, with days of dry weather on Ama Dablam. Nima, Moro, and Pereira enjoyed two easy rotations—acclimatization trips—up to Camps I and II. But the night before their summit bid, it snowed. With the rocks now slick, the climbers had to brace more often against fixed ropes, and on the second day, Nima's hands and forearms began to cramp. The trio decided to turn around several hundred feet below the summit and move on to Manaslu with less acclimatization than they'd hoped. After they reached Manaslu Base Camp a week and a half later, it snowed again. Then the forecast deteriorated further: three straight weeks of winds projected at over 90 miles an hour, creating dangerous climbing conditions. If they waited, they'd lose what acclimatization they had. After a week at Base Camp, they canceled the expedition. Nima and Moro immediately planned another attempt on Manaslu next winter. 'I felt like this was the best expedition of my life,' Nima told me. The extreme conditions exhilarated him, and compared to commercial expeditions, 'everything was in our hands.' Nima's greatest challenge now may be to stay focused on climbing. After Manaslu, he once again has a lot going on. He recently signed a book deal and announced that he's a climate influencer for the United Nations Development Programme in Nepal. In the spring he went to Everest Base Camp, but not to climb—he was helping his dad manage logistics, sitting for interviews with an American news crew, and assisting a company that was experimentally using drones to haul trash off the mountain. He'd also incorporated a company of his own, to make souvenirs from all that trash. He was training for Manaslu, he told me, but he was vague about how much, saying that he was trail running and strength training but didn't track his workouts. It remains to be seen if Nima will be the breakthrough athlete he wants to be. He has his doubters. His privilege is a source of ire among some in his own community, and several people I interviewed wanted me to know that Nepal has many talented young climbers today, not just Nima—climbers who would have his profile if they had his opportunities. But Nima believes that whether he achieves his goal or not, he's done something for his community already. (When climbing the world's tallest mountains, what counts as cheating?) On our trek's fourth day, I asked him what he thought of the debate about his climbing style. The sun was sinking below the mountains, and we were in a chilly room of a rustic lodge in the Sherpa village of Deboche. Was he aware that some people dismissed climbing 8,000-meter peaks as he did, with oxygen and fixed lines and Sherpa support? That people suggested that, in the eyes of 'real climbers,' he had yet to achieve much? Nima was sitting in a chair with his arms crossed. He didn't even pause. He said he didn't think those criticisms applied to him, then laughed. If he was a grown man making a big deal out of his accomplishments, they might have a point. 'But I'm just 16, 17 years old, just figuring it out,' he said, reminding me how young he was when he started climbing in the high peaks, so give him a break. Nima knows that what he did was impressive at his age. He understands that the story of Sherpas in the past 15 years has been one of the power of role-modeling, of being able to see heroes made in your own image and then daring to imagine yourself surpassing them. He believes he moved the right people. 'If I was someone else and I saw an 18-year-old did this,' he said, 'I'd be inspired.' A version of this story will appear in the November 2025 issue of National Geographic magazine.
