Jason Kelce Is ‘Not Proud’ of Smashing Heckler’s Phone and Using F-Slur: ‘I Chose to Greet Hate With Hate’

Jason Kelce has addressed the recent altercation between him and a football fan who called his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, a homophobic slur.

“I’m not happy with anything that took place,” Kelce said at the start of ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown.” “I’m not proud of it. 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. I don’t think that it leads to discourse and it’s the right way to go about things. And in that moment I fell down to a level that I shouldn’t have.” 

The incident occurred Saturday outside Penn State’s Beaver Stadium in State College, Penn. The retired Philadelphia Eagles center, now a football analyst with ESPN, was there to attend the Penn State-Ohio State football game and appear on ESPN’s “College GameDay.”

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In a video circulating online, Kelce is seen walking through a crowd outside the stadium when a man in the background yelled at him, “Hey, Kelce. How does it feel your brother’s a faggot dating Taylor Swift?” The homophobic slur was directed at Travis, who has been dating Swift since last year.

Kelce then appeared to turn around, grab the man’s phone and smash it on the ground. In another video posted online, the retired NFL player is heard repeating the slur, saying to the football fan, “Who’s the faggot now?”

“The bottom line is, I try to live my life by the golden rule, that’s what I’ve always been taught,” Kelce said on “Monday Night Countdown.” “I try to treat people with common decency and respect, and I’m going to keep doing that moving forward.”