BEST FRIENDS. FIERCE COMPETITORS. POLAR OPPOSITES. KINDRED SPIRITS. THE BIGGEST NAMES IN PRO FOOTBALL SHARE AN UNBREAKABLE BOND
By DAVID WALTERS
SWAPPING JERSEYS (AND A SMOOCH)Travis and Jason after a game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City in 2017.
Chicken grease. An old hockey skate. Mildew. A flip-flop. On a recent episode of their New Heights podcast, the Kelce Brothers are discussing what people might assume Jason smells like. The conversation, inspired by their discovery of a growing, unsanctioned online industry of candles claiming to be Travis-scented (most of which involve conventional ingredients like cedarwood and patchouli), quickly goes where many of their conversations go. That is to say, barreling headlong off the rails.
“Can we make [a candle] for Jason? Can we have a smell-off?” Travis demands, giggling, before delving further into his olfactory expectations for his older brother. “You look like you smell like a wet boot!” Jason, devoting himself to a Google search, responds: “You don’t think there’s anyone out there looking for Smells Like Jason Kelce candles?” Travis, feeling generous, tosses out a couple alternative top notes: cinnamon, apple cider.
“There are a bunch . . . with my likeness on them, but none of them say ‘Smells Like,’ ” Jason concludes in mock defeat. “I feel like people would be turned off by a candle that smells like me.” At this, both break into fits of laughter.
BALL IS LIFEBasketball was an early passion for Travis (left, with Jason at a May 2023 NBA game). “But he wasn’t a good dribbler,” recalls Donna.
COMING UP KELCE
TOP: JESSE D. GARRABRANT/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES
The Kelces’ style of brotherly banter would sound right at home in a mid-aughts Judd Apatow comedy, but it was forged in a modest backyard in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where the two grew up competing and teasing with equal zeal. “I’ve been listening to the shtick between these [two] since they were toddlers,” their father, Ed Kelce, 72, told People last October. “The way they interact on the podcast, that’s the way they’ve always been. And that’s always been fun to watch.”
It’s this easy charm and undeniable authenticity that have made Jason, 36, and Travis, 34, much more than the NFL’s most recognizable (and most bankable) brothers. If last February’s Super Bowl LVII, in which Travis’s Kansas City Chiefs defeated Jason’s Philadelphia Eagles, gave us all a healthy dose of Kelce Mania, the ensuing months— crammed with their chart-topping podcast, Jason’s record-breaking Amazon Prime documentary Kelce, a slew of endorsements and Travis’s high-profile relationship with Taylor Swift, which helped boost the NFL’s female viewership by more than 2 million—have only supercharged the fascination.
“It’s been really surreal and a fun ride to be on,” says their mother, Donna Kelce, 71. “Being able to be with my kids—the experiences, the places, enjoying people I’ve never met before. There are definitely perks that come with the notoriety.
‘AS GOOD AS THEY ARE, THEY’RE ALWAYS LOOKING TO GET BETTER’ —ED KELCE
TOP LEFT: COOPER NEILL/GETTY IMAGES
And I’m very happy they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor, because it’s [been] a tough ride to get where they are now.”
Donna says it was their small family that cemented her sons’ fierce commitment to each other. “My brother didn’t have any children, and my husband’s sister didn’t have any,” she recalls. “[Jason and Travis] used to yell at me because they didn’t have any cousins to play with on Christmas. We were tight-knit, always trying to help each other as much as we could.”
Notably, it was Jason who stuck out his neck for his younger brother and college teammate at the University of Cincinnati, after Travis failed a drug test for marijuana in 2009 and was dismissed from the team—a blow that could have ended his professional career before it began. “I knew my brother had gone to the coaches and said, ‘If you give him a second chance, he won’t screw it up,’ ” Travis recounts in Kelce. “[He] put his word on the line.” As Jason sees it, he simply responded in the manner he was raised: “The only thing I did was the same thing my parents did. At the time of adversity . . . my job was to be there to fulfill that same belief and confidence in [Travis]. That’s my role.”
Duty to family was ingrained by Ed and Donna, who have admitted that they stayed together for years for the sake of their children. (They eventually divorced after Travis left for college in 2008.) Today, continuing the divideand- conquer lifestyle of sports parents, they make it a point to attend as many of their sons’ games as possible, switching off when necessary. “The most important thing is to value your children, and to [do that], you have to spend time with them,” explains Donna, who traveled 1,300 miles in a single day last season to catch a playoff doubleheader. “It may seem simple, but if they know you took the time to come and watch whatever endeavor— sports, art, music—you show them you value them as human beings. That’s all you need to do as a parent.” As Travis told People last April: “My entire upbringing [was about learning] to fuel people. . . . I was always taught to be a fountain, not a drain, [to] provide something instead of [taking].”
FRATERNAL FASHION : A STUDY IN CONTRASTS
“They’re complete opposites in every facet: personality, style, clothing,” a source tells People. “They’re like the odd couple. Jason doesn’t care about appearance and isn’t trying to be cool or dress cool, very salt of the earth. Travis is the life of the party, Mr. Personality. When he walks into a room, you know he’s there. He loves fashion and likes to take risks. Jason’s a Birkenstock guy. Travis is a Jordans guy.”
Jason, of course, gets to pay those parental lessons forward every day, to daughters Wyatt, 4, Elliotte, 2, and Bennett, 11 months, whom he shares with Kylie McDevitt, 31, his wife of five years. “Kylie is very sweet and levelheaded,” says another source. “Everybody loves her, and they’re great partners. Jason has a crazy schedule, but they balance it really well. They make it all work.”
And while Travis is content to play the role of uncle for now—“He’s the absolute best you can imagine. He’s all in,” Kylie told People in 2023—Ed can see beyond the blinding lights of his son’s relationship with Taylor Swift and recognize someone who shares the Kelces’ smalltown values. “The first time I met Taylor,” he said, “we’re sitting in the [luxury] suite, and she starts picking up empty bottles, cans, plates that were scattered around. And I’m thinking, ‘I don’t think she got the diva memo!’ To me, that really said a whole lot.”
LEFT PAGE: (DOCUMENTARY) PRIME VIDEO; (NIKE) COURTESY NIKE; (ALPINE) GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; (COW) GETTY IMAGES; (BUFFALO WILD WINGS) COURTESY BUFFALO WILD WINGS; RIGHT PAGE, TOP RIGHT: WILLIAM PURNELL/USA TODAY SPORTS; BOTTOM: ANDREW MATHER/KANSAS CITY CHIEFS/AP
The NFL playoffs now roll on for Travis but not Jason—the Chiefs beat the Miami Dolphins on Jan. 13 to advance to the divisional round, and the Eagles lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Jan. 15. But the next chapter for both looms large, particularly as, after 13 seasons, Jason contemplates retirement. (He announced his intention to return after last season, saying, “I ain’t f---in’ done yet!”)
“Jason could run for mayor of Philadelphia and win,” says a source close to the family. “[The city is] obsessed with him. Aside from his being a superstar athlete, Philly embraces him because of who he is—just a good, lovable family dude.”
Travis, on the other hand, recently shut down rumors that he might hang up his cleats, saying he has “no desire to stop anytime soon.” When that day comes, however, there’s little reason to think he’ll fade into the background. Recently, his management team revealed to The New York Times their vision to make Travis as “famous as the Rock,” referencing Dwayne Johnson’s transition from WWE star to A-list actor. “He really enjoyed Saturday Night Live,” a source says of Travis’s March 2023 hosting stint. “He had a blast. After he retires, he wants to lean into acting and hosting.”
HUG IT OUTThe brothers embrace after Jason’s Eagles beat Travis’s Chiefs in Kansas City on Nov. 20, 2023.
‘FOOTBALL HAS TAKEN THEM FAR BEYOND WHAT THEY COULD HAVE EVER IMAGINED’
—DONNA KELCE
For now, Travis will continue to hone his charisma on the New Heights podcast, opposite his toughest critic and worthiest foil. “They’re just as competitive as adults today, always jabbing at each other [about] who’s the best,” says Donna, laughing. “It doesn’t stop. They’re each other’s biggest fan.”
With reporting by SKYLER CARUSO, NATASHA DYE and ANYA L EON
