Celebrity
Heidi Gardner Has Wanted Travis Kelce To Host SNL For Years
There was one specific thing he had to do before being invited to host.
Heidi Gardner was always Team Kelce. In a new episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, the Saturday Night Live star revealed that she’d long campaigned for Travis Kelce to host the renowned sketch comedy show.
“It took a couple years,” she said. “I don’t want to take full credit from the show and the talent department, but I am obviously a big Chiefs fan, and I had seen him do other little acting gigs and appearances.”
Gardner, who was born in Kansas City, said she met the football star when they co-hosted the ESPYs, where she got to see his charisma and comedic chops up close. “His talents were already on their way,” she said of the Kansas City Chiefs tight end.
But it took a while to convince SNL that Kelce would be a good fit. Gardner reavealed that when she spoke with longtime showrunner Lorne Michaels about the idea, Michaels told her that Kelce had to “win the Super Bowl” before he could host.
“I was like, ‘That is so much pressure to ask!’ And then he won the Super Bowl!” she said.
In the end, Kelce hosted SNL in March 2023 during Season 48, just months before his relationship with Taylor Swift was publicly confirmed. To celebrate, Gardner said she threw a good old-fashioned tailgate in her dressing room the night of the show, complete with barbecue, as a reference to the parties outside the Kansas City Arrowhead Stadium. Gardner told Kelce about the tailgate, but didn’t expect him to come given the demanding time crunch of hosting the show.
But she was in for a surprise. “That morning, he was so nice,” she said. “Jeff, one of our guys in the talent department knocked on my dressing room, and I opened it, and he had these cans of tequila sodas. He’s like, ‘These are from Travis for the tailgate.’”
As she left the room to get her makeup done, she received a text from her brother and best friend, who sent her a photo of both Travis Kelce and his brother, Jason, eating the barbecue in her dressing room. “I just know for a fact that’s the only host in SNL history that’s ever tailgated before hosting,” she added.
Kelce, who confirmed his relationship with Swift in October 2023, has since co-hosted the podcast New Heights with Jason Kelce, and hosted Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? He also made his acting debut in Ryan Murphy’s Grotesquerie, and is reportedly in talks to star in an upcoming comedy Loose Cannons.
