'Holiday Touchdown': All about Donna Kelce's 'Love you Mommy!' jersey from Travis
KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Donna Kelce’s rise to stardom deserves its own celebratory end-zone dance. The mom of two Super Bowl champions — Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce, the former center for the Philadelphia Eagles — makes the equivalent of a TV touchdown with cameos in two of Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas holiday films this season. And she tells Paste BN she wasn't apprehensive about her roles at all.
“You know at my age, you don’t get nervous anymore," Kelce, 72, said at Friday's Chiefs game. "People either accept you the way that you are, or it is what it is. I get a lot of comments. 'You’re too old.' 'You’re too this.' It’s like, who cares? Just go out and have a good time. Reinvent yourself. Have fun. It doesn’t matter what anybody else says.”
“Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story” premieres Saturday, at the network’s first Christmas Experience event (and airs at 8 ET/PT on the Hallmark Channel). The inaugural festive takeover of the city’s Crown Center Square continues on weekends through Dec. 22.
Donna Kelce appeared in the Philadelphia-set “Christmas on Call,” which debuted Nov. 22. She seemed like a natural, sporting an Eagles jersey with Jason’s number, telling two patrons of her cheesesteak shop (stars Sara Canning and Ser'Darius Blain), “Go Birds!”
In “Holiday Touchdown,” Derrick (Tyler Hynes), director of fan engagement for the Chiefs, falls for Alana (Hunter King), a young woman whose family is in the running for the prestigious honor of fan of the year. Like other sports devotees, Alana’s family believes the success of their beloved team relies on a superstition: Someone in their family must be wearing a special knit hat on Christmas Day.
Kelce plays the manager of Alana’s family restaurant, which serves scrumptious Kansas City barbecue. Naturally, Kelce wore a Chiefs jersey for that role, customized with a special message from her son. Travis autographed the jersey and also wrote, “Love you Mommy!”
“I have had this jersey forever," Kelce said Friday, wearing the same one from the film. "He signed that for me a long time ago, when he first came into the league. (The Chiefs selected Travis during the 2013 NFL Draft.) And I wear it every time.
"It’s starting to break off and everything," she added. "So I have to cover it up, but this is probably the most superstitious I get is this jersey." Kelce also showed off her late mom's bracelet, which is dear to her heart. "My mother died a couple years go, and I carry this with me," Kelce said. "She has one (bead) for the Chiefs and one for the Eagles, and I feel like she’s with me. So I always have this, and I always have the jersey.”
Tyler Hynes applauded Kelce for being able to catch onto acting so quickly during an interview aboard Hallmark’s first Christmas cruise in early November.
“One of the first conversations I had with her, I was like, ‘I can't imagine my mom in this circumstance. This is crazy,’” Hynes said. “She is parading into a room filled with people, executives, actors, famous actors who both of us idolize — Ed Begley Jr, Diedrich (Bader) — and she's being asked to come in, give these lines, and it's a whole new world. My mom would have no idea what's going on, and yet there she was. And she was thrown into the deep end.”
Kelce said she didn't seek any acting advice from Travis ("Grotesquerie," "Moonbase 8") or Jason ("Abbott Elementary," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"). “You just go up there," Kelce said, "you do the best you can and pray to God it’s not bad.”
But her lack of nerves doesn't mean she's jumping to take on more acting roles. “I think I’m just going to relax," she said. "Some people feel that they’ve have enough of the Kelces, so I’m going to calm it down a little bit.”