Breaking news : Overwhelmed Jason Kelce announced that mom Donna is set to re-marry dad Ed after 20 years of divorce
It sure seems like Taylor Swift is being welcomed into the Kelce family.
On Feb. 1, Donna Kelce updated her Facebook cover photo to include a group shot which features the “Cruel Summer” singer.
In the picture, Kelce stands on the left, smiling and waving, while wearing her son’s No. 87 Chiefs jersey.
Swift is kneeling in the front, wearing a black skirt, red top and black cap. Her left arm is extended and she looks like she’s shouting in joy.
There are nearly 20 people in the photo, all of whom look ecstatic, with multiple ones wearing Chiefs paraphernalia. Chiefs fans, of course, are feeling pretty good these days after the team beat the Baltimore Ravens Jan. 28 in the AFC championship game to advance to the 2024 Super Bowl. Swift sported a red sweater and black hat in photos from the game shared by Brittany Mahomes, wife of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, so it’s possible Kelce’s new cover photo on Facebook is from that day.
Donna and Ed Kelce made headlines last year when their two sons, Travis and Jason, a center with the Philadelphia Eagles, competed against each other in the Super Bowl.
In February 2023, the two became the first-ever NFL parents to have sons on opposite sides of a matchup on football’s biggest stage. And now, they’re back in the spotlight as moments of them next to their son Travis Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, have gone viral.
Swift, who’s been spotted attending Chiefs games since late September 2023, has been captured sitting beside and sharing laughs with Donna and Ed Kelce.
Most recently, Swift was pictured with three members of her boyfriend’s family — Ed, Donna and Jason Kelce — when the Chiefs won the AFC championship game.
In the photo shared by Swift’s friend Keleigh Teller, in her Instagram story, they all appear to be sharing a big laugh as Jason Kelce holds a beer and looks behind him toward a crowd of people.
Following the Chiefs’ win against the Baltimore Ravens, Swift and the family rushed the field together for a moment with the all-star tight end.
Donna Kelce and Ed Kelce welcomed their famous sons into the world over three decades ago. Here’s what to know about some of the most iconic parents in football.
Donna was the first person in her family to graduate from college
While appearing on a parents episode of the Kelce brothers’ podcast, “New Heights,” Feb. 6 prior to the 2023 Super Bowl, Donna Kelce, née Blalock, said that she grew up in inner city Cleveland in a “small house” with her grandparents living upstairs.
After moving to the suburbs in fourth grade, the mom of two said her own mother was “very ill” and passed away when she was 12 and her brother was 10. Following her biological mother’s death, Donna Kelce said her dad married a “wonderful human being” named Mary.
“(Mary) raised Don and I,” Donna Kelce said, referring to her brother. “And, by the grace of God, if we didn’t have her, I don’t think we would have made it through.”
Mary motivated Donna Kelce to go to college, despite the reluctance of her father, who wanted her to attend secretary school. After earning a degree in broadcast communications from Ohio University, Donna Kelce became the first person in her family to graduate from college.
But Donna Kelce chose not to pursue a career in communications. She went back to school for her masters and ended up in banking.
Ed comes from a long line of military veterans
On the same podcast episode with his sons, Ed Kelce said he was the oldest of two children and grew up in the Collinwood neighborhood of Cleveland.
“Blue collar town, blue collar part of Cleveland, great neighborhood,” he said on the podcast of his childhood. “It was a lot of fun.”
After graduating from high school, Ed Kelce said he initially attended Ohio State University, but went home after about a “quarter and a half.” He said he took credits at two other schools and wound up with about a year of collegiate-level education under his belt.
Ed Kelce then went to work in the steel industry, eventually becoming a sales rep who sold products to manufacturers, he explained in a February interview with The Los Angeles Times.
“I’d take them there — hard hat, safety glasses, boots, the whole nine yards,” he told the publication of bringing his sons to work. “I’d tell them,’ You can have a job like your mother’s, or you can have a job like mine.’”
At one point, he attempted to join the Marines to follow in the footsteps of generations of family members who served in the U.S. military. However, the Marines, nor the Army, would accept him due to a knee injury from high school football that still impacted him.
He began training with the Coast Guard, but explained to his sons on the podcast that he had to drop out because his Crohn’s disease was “acting up” for the first time in his life.
Ed Kelce also revealed on the podcast that he worked part time at a candy store around Christmas in order to pay for gifts for his family.
“I had two kids that I was crazy about,” he said of his reason for taking on the additional work. “I don’t think I’m unique in that.”
Donna and Ed describe how they met the first time
Donna Kelce recounted her meet cute with Ed Kelce on the podcast. As the story goes, they first met at the popular Cleveland bar Fagan’s after work.
“He came up to me with the illustrious pickup line, which was, ‘Did you say Joe?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Oh I thought you said Joe.’ I said, ‘Is your name Joe?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s Ed,’” she recalled, as the three of them laughed.
But Donna Kelce had another date she was supposed to be at while chatting the night away with Ed Kelce.
“I was supposed to go out with a guy that night. We were supposed to go to a play and I never made it,” she said. “Your dad and I talked forever … It was meant to be. It’s just the way it was.”
Ed Kelce said that he didn’t remember that his former wife stood up her date, nor that he used that pickup line.
But he did recall Donna Kelce giving him a ride home to shower and change after his day in the Steel Mill. He said they then continued their conversation at another nearby bar called “The No Name.”
They were together for over 20 years before getting a divorce
Donna and Ed Kelce open up about their relationship struggles in the documentary “Kelce,” focusing on their older son. While the couple say they would have “preferred” to have split early on, they stayed together for the kids.
“If we had split as we probably both would have preferred, that would have been a nightmare with the logistics, getting kids where they had to be and providing all the support,” Ed Kelce said in “Kelce”.
They remained amicable. On the “New Heights” podcast in 2023, Jason and Travis Kelce spoke to their mom about her marriage to their father, which lasted for over 20 years, before Donna Kelce confirmed she and Ed Kelce divorced over 10 years ago.
Donna Kelce said they’re “friends to this day.”
She continued, “We get along great, it’s just sometimes people, they, move apart.”
Ed Kelce shared a similar sentiment, telling the two that he wants “nothing but happiness for (their) mother.”
After Jason Kelce asked each of his parents separately if they regret marrying one another, they both quickly responded no, with Donna Kelce adding, “Because I got you two.”
“It was perfect,” she said. “You got to do whatever sports you wanted. You got to go on all the tournaments. You got to everything and it worked out.”
Ed coached Jason and Travis in baseball growing up
After asking their dad to recount which organized sport first inspired their passion for the game, Ed Kelce reminded them that their love began on their living room floor.
“The first thing you did was you were a toddler on the living room floor and you rolled a ball to me, you rolled it back and we played that way and that’s where it all started,” he said on the “New Heights” podcast.
Growing up in Cleveland Heights, Ed Kelce coached his sons, Travis Kelce in T-ball and Jason Kelce in coach pitch baseball. He even built them areas to play sports in their garage and threw a ball around with his two boys in their front yard.
Though he beamed talking about his sons’ athletic abilities from a young age, Ed Kelce said he always reminded his sons the value of hard work and humility — both as a coach and as a dad.
“I didn’t like you being on the team where you were the stud,” he said to Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce. “I wanted you on a team where you had to work harder.”
Donna and Ed are grandparents
In 2019, Donna Kelce and Ed Kelce became grandparents when Jason Kelce and his wife, Kylie, welcomed daughter Wyatt. The couple has since welcomed two more girls, Elliotte and Bennett.
As of 2020, Ed Kelce lives a mile away from his firstborn son’s family, moving from Cleveland to Philadelphia on a nine-acre farm, according to the LA Times.
He told the publication that the move allows him more time with his granddaughters and the opportunity to help the family grow produce, the majority of which they donate to underprivileged families.
Donna Kelce shared a video montage of photos on Instagram in July 2023 from a summer trip to Disney World, set to the song “Moments We Live For.”
