Heidi Gardner enlisted Travis Kelce for a pair of romantic sketches during his Saturday Night Live debut last year, but she poses no threat to his girlfriend, Taylor Swift.
“It was cool because right before dress rehearsal, we were in a scene where we — sorry, Taylor — were in bed together,” Gardner, 40, recalled during the Friday, May 3, broadcast of Today. “He leaned into me right before lights up on the scene and he’s like, ‘I’ve been eating Uncrustables [sandwiches] all day.’ And I was like, ‘Cool.’”
Kelce, 34, hosted SNL for the first time in March 2023, several months before he started dating Swift, also 34. During the variety series, he joined Gardner for a sketch called “Garrett From Hinge” where they played a couple getting ready for bed when her former dating app match (played by Bowen Yang) interrupted their moment. In a follow-up skit, Kelce starred in an “NFL Gives Back” PSA spoof for women with small boyfriends and had to lift Gardner in the air.
Before Kelce killed it on the variety show, Gardner knew it would be a success several months prior when she pitched his appearance to showrunner Lorne Michaels. (Gardner, a Kansas City local, is a big-time fan of Kelce and his Chiefs football team.)
“[Lorne] said, ‘Well, he has to win the Super Bowl,’” she recalled on Friday. “And I was like, ‘Well, that’s a really big ask.’ And then he went and won the Super Bowl! Then he went and hosted SNL and I feel like [he] won SNL. He did such a great job.”
Kelce and the Chiefs won the 2023 Super Bowl, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles. In Travis’ SNL monologue, he joked that the victory was “pretty awkward” because brother Jason Kelce played on the Eagles. (Jason, 36, retired from professional football in March.)
As Travis geared up for his SNL debut, Gardner was admittedly “protective” over him.
“I asked him questions, which also as a sports fan I’m just interested in, but I was like, ‘On game day, what do you eat?’” Gardner told hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager. “He was like, ‘Uncrustables. I’m just pounding Uncrustables.’ Yeah, even during the games. And so, the Saturday of the show I went to the store and I got him Uncrustables. I was like, ‘I want this to feel as much like home as I can.’”
Four months later, Travis was still in his NFL offseason and spent it at Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Kansas City. Despite a missed connection after the show, Travis and Swift started dating several weeks later. They took their romance public the following September when Swift went to her first Chiefs game.
After the Chiefs’ October 2023 away game in New Jersey, Travis and Swift made a pair of cameos on SNL. He appeared in a sketch mocking the NFL’s constant coverage of Swift attending his games, while the pop star introduced Ice Spice’s musical performance.
Swift later attended 12 more of Travis’ NFL games, including the Super Bowl in February, which the Chiefs won over the San Francisco 49ers. Back in his offseason, Travis has recently been spending time with Swift on the road for her international Eras shows. As the Grammy winner went on her own hiatus in March, the couple hunkered down at her Los Angeles pad.
