Former NFL player and ESPN host Jason Kelce broke his silence about a recent incident involving a heckler at Pennsylvania State University — and said that he wasn’t happy with any of what had happened.
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 said 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 added. “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.
In a third clip, Kelce could be seen bending down to pick up the dropped phone, at which point the heckler put his hand on Kelce and shoved the former NFL player to the ground. Kelce then stood up and lashed out at the heckler, saying “Who’s the f****t now?” before he walked off to attend the game.
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.
Related: Jason Kelce Harassed At Penn State, Smashes Heckler’s Phone