Former NFL player and ESPN podcast host Jason Kelce, the brother of Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — but most famous for being the boyfriend of Taylor Swift — has officially broken his silence about a situation involving a heckler at Pennsylvania State University. During his comments about the situation he stated he wasn’t at all pleased with how any of it went down.
According to The Daily Wire, “During the pregame show of ESPN’s coverage of the Monday Night Football Game, Kelce talked about the video on social media — which showed a heckler calling his brother Travis Kelce a ‘f****t,’ after which Kelce threw the person’s phone to the ground and the heckler shoved him down.”
“Listen, I’m not happy with anything that took place,” Kelce went on to state on the show. “I’m not proud of it. And in a heated moment, I chose to greet hate with hate. And I just don’t think that that’s a productive thing.”
“I really don’t,” he continued. “I don’t think that it leads to discourse and it’s the right way to go about things. In that moment I fell down to a level that I shouldn’t have. So, bottom line is, I try to live my life by the golden rule. That’s what I’ve always been taught … even though I fell short this week.”
Jason Kelce addressed the Penn State phone-smashing incident at the start of ESPN's pregame show tonight and apologized:
"In a heated moment, I decided to greet hate with hate. … I fell short this week" pic.twitter.com/884LtqvFzX
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) November 4, 2024
Kelce then directed the audience’s attention to the Monday night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, noting that there was no need to address the matter further on that platform. In the video that surfaced on Saturday on X, the former Philadelphia Eagles star was attempting to walk in to the Ohio State-Penn State college football game when he was surrounded outside Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, as The Daily Wire previously reported. One of the people who was walking very close to him was a male college student who pointed his phone-camera in Kelce’s face and began harassing him.
In the clip, the person can be heard saying to Kelce, whose brother is dating Taylor Swift, “Kelce, how does it feel that your brother is a f****t for dating Taylor Swift?” A second video showed a close-up shot of Jason looking directly at the heckler while he made the comments. In response, Kelce grabbed the phone and threw it to the ground. He then bent down to pick it up before walking away.
A third clip of the encounter showed Kelce bending over to pick up the phone. The heckler, who I think we can all agree with a grade A moron, then put his hand on Kelce and pushed him to the ground. Kelce bounced back up and returned proverbial fire against the idiot “Who’s the f****t now?” before storming off to attend the game.
Honestly, this man was asking to have his face pushed through the back of his skull. He’s truly lucky that Kelce exercised as much self-control as he did. I don’t think he would have enjoyed any acts of self-defense that could have followed up that push.
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The video was taken during Kelce’s attendance at the game for an appearance on ESPN’s College Gameday, People magazine noted. Kelce retired from the Eagles in March 2024. He is a host of the “New Heights” podcast with his brother Travis in addition to working for the sports network.
Personally, I don’t think Kelce has a lot to apologize for. The heckler played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.