Retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce waits to surprise fans at an impromptu appearance at a pregame tailgate party of an NFL football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Browns, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024 in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Dan Gelston)
Retired Eagles center Jason Kelce apologized during ESPN’s pregame show Monday night after grabbing the phone of an unruly fan and spiking it to the ground before the Ohio State-Penn State game last weekend.
“In a heated moment, I decided to greet hate with hate,” Kelce said before ESPN’s broadcast of the Buccaneers-Chiefs game featuring his brother, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. “I fell short this week.”
Jason Kelce was attending the Big Ten matchup between the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions in State College, Pennsylvania, on Saturday when the incident occurred. Video on social media showed him walking through a crowd near Beaver Stadium and fans asking for photos and fist bumps when one fan began to heckle him and appeared to shout an anti-gay slur directed toward his brother for dating Taylor Swift.
At that point, Kelce grabbed the fan’s phone and threw it to the ground, then turned to confront the man dressed in Penn State attire. Kelce appeared to use the same anti-gay slur during the exchange before another fan stepped between them before the altercation could escalate.
“I think everybody has seen on social media what happened this week,” Kelce said on the ESPN broadcast. “Listen, I’m not happy with anything that took place. I’m not proud of it. In a heated moment I chose to greet hate with hate and I just don’t think that’s a productive thing, I really don’t. I don’t think 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.
“The bottom line is, I try to live my life by the golden rule, that’s what I’ve always been taught,” he said. “I try to treat people with common decency and respect, and I’m going to keep doing that moving forward.”