Jason Kelce has addressed the recent altercation between him and a so-called football fan who called his brother Travis Kelce in a homophobic manner last week.
“I’m not happy with anything that took place. I’m not proud of it,” the retired Philadelphia Eagles center said at the outset of Monday Night Countdown on ESPN.
“Within a heated moment, I chose to greet hate with hate and I don’t think that’s a productive thing. I don’t think it leads to discourse.”
Here is some background:
On November 2, Jason was walking outside of Penn State University’s Beaver Stadium when a man started to heckle him in regard to Travis’ relationship with Taylor Swift.
“Kelce,” this idiot yelled out. “How does it feel that your brother is a fagg-t for dating Taylor Swift?”
Because this is the Internet and cell phone age, the question was caught on camera — as was Jason’s response, which was to smash the man’s phone on the ground and then walk away with it in his hand.
“I don’t think that it leads to discourse and it’s the right way to go about things,” Kelce explained on air this evening.
“In that moment, I fell down to a level that I shouldn’t have. So, I think the bottom line is, I try to live my life by the golden rule — it’s what I’ve always been taught — I try to treat people with common decency and respect, and I’m going to keep doing that moving forward, even though I fell short this week.
“I’m going to do that moving forward.”
We can’t exactly condone breaking another person’s property, we suppose.
But we don’t condone the language used by this moron who got in Jason’s face, either.
This latest encounter, meanwhile, wasn’t the first time Jason Kelce has experienced a tense fan interaction.
In May, he and wife Kylie Kelce — with whom he shares kids Wyatt, 5, Elliotte, 3, and Bennett, 20 months — were berated by a woman in a New Jersey parking lot who badgered the couple for a photo.
In videos that went viral at the time, the woman could be heard telling Jason and Kylie that they “will never be allowed in this town again,” prompting Kylie to tell her:
“I can smell the alcohol on your breath. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
The woman eventually apologized and thanked the Kelces for understanding.
“In a heated moment, I said things that were out of character for me and that I regret, and for that, I am sorry,” she told WPVI in a May statement.
“My anger, and my actions, are not who I am, and certainly not indicative of the welcoming community of Margate. As an adult and proud member of my community, I should have recognized and respected their right to privacy from the onset.”