Kylie Kelce on Body Confidence in Sports, Raising Three Girls, and Jason’s Surprising Hidden Talent
Are you, like most of America, curious to learn more about Kylie Kelce? Well, the former college field hockey star and mother of three insists she is an open book.
Case in point: After last week’s Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills game where her husband, Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, took his shirt off in the stands, Kylie jokingly declared she would be getting a cat in response to his antics.
According to Kelce, the headline-grabbing moment was just another day in the life of her family.
“I expect that at this point,” she tells Glamour with a laugh. “If he doesn’t do something a little bit nutty like that, I’m like, ‘Are you okay?’”
Of course, Kelce is well aware of the public attention—she’s been married to the Super Bowl champion since 2018 and is the sister-in-law of Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce. However, Kylie Kelce says that with her family, what you see is what you get, especially when it comes to Jason and Travis’s podcast, New Heights.
“I have no filter, and people think they’re getting the inside scoop when I appear on the podcast. But the boys rat themselves out every single week,” she says. “They’re very self-aware individuals. It’s kind of entertaining.”
Kelce is understandably less forthcoming when it comes to talking about Taylor Swift, who is dating her brother-in-law to much fanfare. However, she insists that any increase of interest in football, especially among young girls, is ultimately good for the sport.
“My dad only had two daughters, so I was the stand-in for watching football with my dad. I always found it to be the most fun experience, watching with him to cheer on the Eagles. It was the Sunday activity,” she explains. “So to see that other young girls are getting involved and that they want to sit down and cheer with their dads or they’re finding their own reason to be interested, it’s only something that can be painted in a positive and exciting light. It’s just another way to encourage girls to appreciate sport.”
For similar reasons, Kelce is using her own platform for good. Ahead of Super Bowl LVIII, she’s joining forces with Dove for its Body Confident Sports initiative, a curriculum geared toward building body confidence in young female athletes.
During the big game, Dove will air an ad bringing awareness to this program codeveloped with Nike to create tailored coaching for girls 11 to 17. According to the brand, 45% of girls globally drop out of sports each year, citing low body confidence as their primary reason.
This partnership is especially meaningful for Kelce, who remembers using Dove while she was a student athlete playing field hockey at Cabrini University in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
“I grew up using Dove. It’s a brand that I've always supported and still support to this day,” says Kelce. “I was an athlete myself, and I coach field hockey now for a high school team, so every single day I am trying to do the things that Dove is now trying to achieve. It is an outstanding resource for not only athletes but coaches, and how we can address the topic and make sure that we are keeping girls confident enough that they stay in sports.”
Standing at 5'11'', Kelce says her height made her prone to feeling self-conscious. However, she began to view her tall build as a superpower when she saw how it helped her game.
“A lot of people might think that my height would negatively impact a young girl, but there are two things that helped me move past that and see it as a positive asset to myself,” she says. “First of all, my dad is 6'9'', but also the fact that my height in field hockey was a positive asset. I had a better reach, I had a stronger hit because my stick was longer. There were so many ways that my height helped me in field hockey.”
This realization—finding confidence and fulfillment through love of the sport—is what Kelce wants young girls to take away from the spot on Super Bowl Sunday. “I hope they draw the connection between sports and feeling good about themselves,” she says. “That sports are an enjoyable and positive experience, and having those positive feelings then translates to making sure they continue with it.”
Ahead, Kylie Kelce talks about raising three young girls in a football family, her thoughts on starting a podcast with her mother-in-law, Donna Kelce, and her husband’s surprising hidden talent.
Glamour: A big part of the Body Confident Sports campaign is making sure young girls have female coaches and influences they can identify with. Who are some women past and present whom you admire and look up to?
Kylie Kelce: When I was younger, I was very much in the age of the Mia Hamm women’s soccer team. That entire team of women, when Brandi Chastain pulled her jersey over her head in celebration, those are the memories that have instilled in my brain in a positive way that I remember being like, Gosh, they are so cool. I recognized that these women were in the public eye and very much doing it in a positive way and being applauded for their strength and skill and their finesse—all these things that now I try and make sure that my girls are putting emphasis on.
My college coach, Jackie Neary, is an outstanding example of what a woman in sports is. She played field hockey and lacrosse at Temple University. She raised her four kids on the sideline of the field, basically. And then, she is a cancer survivor. She has so many ways in which she has been an absolute powerhouse. Lucky for me, I still have her as a resource and a friend now.
Donna [Kelce] talks about her journey in sports and that it was a little bit skewed because of the opportunities that were available to her, but she was still encouraged to do whatever sport was available or that her dad was allowing her to do.
You’re a mom to three little girls. Do you have any hopes for them to become athletes?
I do hope they become athletes, probably selfishly, but also because there are so many things involved in sport that translate into real life. I tell my high school field hockey girls now that whether they go on to play in college, whether they play just for fun or whether they don’t pick up a stick after high school ever again, the tools that they’re learning, being on a team, working toward a common goal, and doing it together is something that will translate into the workplace. It will translate into life as a whole.
But that being said, my husband and I are both advocates for the arts and would enjoy it if they get involved in that as well. He was a competition jazz band member, so he was a well-rounded guy. Not a lot of people know that, but he played the baritone saxophone, so if they want to get into music, art, we will fully encourage that as well. We’ll try everything just to see what sticks.
How have you and Jason navigated being under a magnifying glass? It seems like you try to stay true to who you are.
The thing we try our best to maintain is a sense of authenticity. We don’t ever want to be people that we are not, mostly because our girls are watching. We want to make sure that we treat people kindly, that we continue to stay grounded, that we continue to act the way that we’ve always acted so that our girls understand that that’s how you should be conducting yourself. So, we have three sets of little eyes on us that are keeping us in line—and ears, really—that are part of the reason why I was so encouraged to get involved with Dove in this capacity.
I know you and Donna are very close. When are you going to give us a podcast to rival Travis and Jason?
Gosh. I think that there would have to be some very extenuating circumstances for me to step into that situation. I don’t know that we ever will, but if we do, it would be some ridiculous storytelling about those boys.
Have you gotten your cat yet?
I have not gotten a cat yet. But I have had conversations with multiple people who, when the time comes and Jason and I are in agreement—because ultimately, I would never actually get a cat without his approval—I have a long list of people who are willing to supply us with the feline.
Ariana Yaptangco is the senior beauty editor at Glamour. Follow her @arianayap.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
