Travis Kelce's Ex Defends Decision to Unfollow Brittany and Patrick Mahomes

Travis Kelce and Kayla Nicole; Brittany and Patrick Mahomes

Travis Kelce's ex-girlfriend Kayla Nicole is clearing the air about her public unfollowing of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany Mahomes.

In case you missed it, Kayla hit the unfollow button on both Patrick and Brittany's Instagram accounts last month, over a year after she split from the the Kansas City Chiefs tight-end, one of Patrick's teammates and good friends.

The social media move ended up making headlines everywhere, as it happened to be right around the same time Travis began heating things up with girlfriend Taylor Swift, who has already become fast friends with Brittany, 28.

But now, Kayla is clarifying her motives behind the unfollowing, sharing in a new interview that the situation is much more complex than people realize.

"I do think it's important to publicly address this because I did publicly unfollow people," Kayla, who insisted that she has already talked to Brittany privately about the situation, told PEOPLE. "The reality is I know these people in real life. And so, in real life, I've communicated to these people why I've had to publicly make the decisions that I made."

The fitness guru—who previously dated Travis for five years—was once a close friend of Brittany's, and was even among those invited to Brittany's eight-person bachelorette weekend in February 2022. She also went wedding dress shopping with Brittany before her March 2022 nuptials to Patrick.

"To everyone it's like, 'Oh, you broke up a year ago,' and that meant it's like a light switch, you turn it on and off and everything goes dead and black and you don't ever speak to anyone ever again," Kayla told the outlet, while arguing, "That's not reality. I have ongoing relationships with all parties involved."

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As for where Kayla and Brittany stand today? She noted, "[Brittany] knows that I love her."

But Kayla still insisted that the decision to unfollow her friends comes from a need to "protect" herself.

"That's really all that is," she stressed. "The love is still there."

She concluded, "I have to move forward and everyone has to respect that."

Next: Why People Think Taylor Swift Broke an NFL Dating 'Curse' With Travis Kelce Relationship