Culture
Travis Kelce says brother Jason was ‘defending’ their family in phone-smashing incident
Travis Kelce said his brother Jason Kelce was defending his family when he reacted to a heckling fan Saturday by slamming the fan’s phone onto the ground. The brothers discussed the incident, which led to a Penn State police investigation and included Jason exchanging a homophobic slur with the fan, on an episode of their “New Heights Podcast” released Wednesday.
“I know it’s weighing on you, brother. … Everybody passing around the videos that are out there. That’s gonna make it a bigger situation than, I think, what it really is,” Travis said on the podcast.
“But the real situation is you had some f— clown come up to you and talk about your family and you reacted in a way that was defending your family. And you might have used some words that you regret using. And that’s a situation that where you just kinda have to learn from and own.”
Jason, a former Philadelphia Eagles center, was in State College to appear on “College GameDay,” which was in town for Saturday’s matchup between Penn State and Ohio State. While outside Beaver Stadium, a fan walking behind Jason can be heard on video using a homophobic slur regarding the relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis. The fan said: “Kelce, how does it feel that your brother is a fa— for dating Taylor Swift?”
Jason then turned around and appeared to take the phone of the fan who said the slur and throw it on the ground. The fan demanded Jason give him the phone back and Jason responded: “Who’s the fa— now?”
Jason Kelce previously addressed the incident on ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown” and said he was “not proud of it.” On the podcast, he expressed further remorse, saying he’s “not happy about the situation.”
“Me reacting gave him the time of day and it also gave the situation notoriety,” Jason said. “That’s what I regret. It didn’t deserve attention. It’s really stupid. And if I just keep walking, it’s a nothing burger. Nobody sees it. Now it’s out there and it just perpetuates more hate.
“The thing I regret the most is saying that word, to be honest with you. The word (the fan) used, it’s just ridiculous and it takes it to another level. … It’s dehumanizing and it got under my skin.”
Travis commended his brother for “owning” the situation, telling Jason that “speaking about it shows how sincere you are to a lot of people in this world.”
“Especially what you said on Monday night that you … you don’t choose hate. That’s just not who you are,” Travis said.
A Penn State University Police and Public Safety spokesperson confirmed Tuesday the department is investigating the incident and the process for reviewing the case is ongoing.
Required reading
(Photo of Jason and Travis Kelce: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights places where authors were born (or lived) that later became locations in their books. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the works if you’d like to do further reading.
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