Before Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, there was another famous blonde who captivated a sports star’s heart – along with the rest of America.

Nearly 75 years before the Grammy Award-winning singer and the football tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs went public with their romance, the country fell head over heels for Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio’s union.

“The comparison is very similar,” Scott Fortner, who owns the world’s largest private collection of Monroe’s personal property and archives, told Fox News Digital.

“You’re talking about two high-profile couples,” he shared. “The difference is obviously that Marilyn was a film star and one of the most popular film stars of the day at that. And what’s a little bit different though, is that Joe was also a huge star in the world of sports.

“Travis Kelce is now more well known because he’s dating Taylor Swift, but before that, he wasn’t necessarily as well known. Whereas Joe DiMaggio, by the time he and Marilyn got together, his career had run its course. He had reached the heights and pinnacle of fame in the sports community, but he’d already retired when he met Marilyn. … He was already a sports icon in his own right.”

According to Fortner, Monroe and DiMaggio first met in 1952. At the time, the former Yankees slugger came across a photo shoot that featured the actress with another baseball player. He was intrigued.

After scoring the number for Monroe’s agent, the two stars went on a first date. Fortner said the attraction was “electric.”

“Marilyn didn’t really have that much of an idea of who Joe was,” said Fortner. “She wasn’t following sports. She was just really interested in her career at that point. So, she didn’t have that much of an idea of who Joe was or how famous he was.”

“She was insanely famous,” Fortner added. “During the ‘50s, she was in three high-profile films – ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,’ ‘Niagara’ and ‘How to Marry a Millionaire.’ And she had starring roles in all of them. They were all box office successes.”