Travis Kelce Finally Responds to Harrison Butker’s Speech

Travis Kelce says he didn’t agree with “just about any” of what his Kansas City Chiefs teammate Harrison Butker said during his extremely controversial commencement speech at a Catholic college earlier this month.

The backlash was swift and furious to Butker’s speech, in which he took swipes at abortion and Pride Month and emphasized to the young women graduating the importance of being a “homemaker.” He also appeared to invoke the lyrics of Kelce’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift, at one point, saying: “As my teammate’s girlfriend says, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt.’”

“I think Pat said it best where he is every bit of a great person and a great teammate,” Kelce said on Friday’s episode of his New Heights podcast, which he hosts alongside his former NFL player brother, Jason Kelce. Travis Kelce was referring to comments made earlier this week by Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, in which he said he judged Butker by “the character he shows every single day, and that’s a good person.”

“He’s treated friends and family that I’ve introduced to him with nothing but respect and kindness. And that’s how he treats everyone,” Kelce said of Butker. Specifically addressing the views the kicker espoused in his commencement speech at Kansas’ Benedictine College, Kelce added: “I can’t say I agree with the majority of it, or just about any of it, outside of just him loving his family and his kids. And I don’t think that I should judge him by his views—especially his religious views—of how to go about life. That’s just not who I am.”

Kelce went on to express his gratitude for his upbringing in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he said he was exposed to a range of people from diverse social classes, faiths, and ethnicities. He said he never felt he had to judge anyone “based off of their beliefs.” He also said his parents were both “homemakers and they were providers.” “I’m not the same person without both of them being who they were in my life,” he said.

Kelce also spoke about the plurality of views among players in the NFL. “You put your differences aside for one goal in common and that’s the beauty of team sports, that’s the beauty of the NFL,” he said. “You get so many different walks of life, so many different beliefs.”

Jason Kelce similarly distanced himself from the views Butker expressed. “Make no mistake about it, a lot of the things he said in his commencement speech are not things that I align myself with,” he said. “But he’s giving a commencement speech at a Catholic university and—shocker—it ended up being a very religious and Catholic speech.”

Jason Kelce said he nevertheless gets “what the fuss is about” and added that his own wife was “a little bit frustrated with some of the comments” Butker had made. Kelce then joked that he’d said to his wife: “Listen, you’re going to need to go back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.”

“We were doing so good,” Travis Kelce replied as his brother laughed. “We were killing it.” Jason Kelce signed off the section on the controversy with: “Best of luck in your kicks, Harrison.”