Emily Zemler
View all posts by Emily Zemler September 18, 2026 Add us as a Google Preferred Source
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Tom Cruise and Jimmy Fallon on 'The Tonight Show' Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images Tom Cruise stopped by The Tonight Show to promote his new movie, Digger. But soon host Jimmy Fallon‘s hard-hitting journalism led to a conversation about Cruise joining Taylor Swift at the Chiefs opening game on Monday.
“When the biggest movie star in the world is sitting next to the biggest artist in the world, what do you talk about?” Fallon asked.
“She was schooling me on football,” Cruise replied. “For real. She was bringing the football. First of all, she’s a genius. I’ve been following her since she was a kid. Everybody there, all their friends—they’re a beautiful couple and magical in their own right.”
He added, “I hadn’t been to a football game since pre-Covid, where I was working and everything. So to get to hang out there and have that moment, it was a lot. But she knows her stuff.”
Cruise and Fallon acknowledged that Swift, by her own admission, knew nothing about football when she met her husband Travis Kelce, who plays for the Chiefs. “She said, ‘He’s so patient,'” Cruise said. “I said, ‘I’m sure he was.’ I think everybody would be very patient [with her].”
During the game, Cruise said the pair also discussed music and movies. “She’s got such a great sense of humor,” Cruise praised Swift. “A brilliant writer also, by the way. Brilliant musician and director. Very skilled.”
During his appearance on the show, Cruise also participated in the “Claw Machine Challenge” alongside Fallon. The segment involved the pair hanging from wires and attempting to secure prizes from a giant pit. The prizes were themed to Cruise’s movies, including Top Gun and Mission: Impossible.
