Saturday Night Live star Heidi Gardner says she lobbied hard to get Travis Kelce on the sketch-comedy show as a host.
She said on a recent episode of Amanda Hirsch’s Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast that she pressured Lorne Michaels for some time before he agreed to invite the Kansas City Chiefs tight end on the show.
“The biggest swing I ever did in that department, and it did work, but it took a couple years, was Travis Kelce,” said Gardner, a Kansas City native and passionate Chiefs fan. “I don’t want to take full credit from the show and the talent department, but I’m just, obviously a big Chiefs fan, and I had seen him do like other little acting gigs and appearances, and I was like, ‘He’s funny, he’s charming.’ I had done the ESPYs with him, announcing something together, and yeah I just kept on going to the show.”
Gardner said she continued to make the request until Michaels finally gave her a condition: “Lorne was like, ‘Well, he has to win the Super Bowl.’ I was like, ‘That is so much pressure to ask.’ And then he won the Super Bowl.” (Kelce, in fact, has been part of three Super Bowl-winning seasons with the Chiefs, in 2020, 2023 and 2024.)
Gardner noted that her lobbying efforts started before Kelce began his high-profile relationship with Taylor Swift; he hosted in March 2023, six months before they went public with their then-new relationship. When Hirsch noted “all the haters that are saying that Travis leveled up just because of Taylor,” Gardner said. “No. … His talents were already on their way.”
Kelce is also racking up other acting credits: He recently appeared in FX’s Grotesquerie and also is in the upcoming Happy Gilmore 2.
Gardner also said that many of her family members and friends came to the show that night and had told Kelce and his brother, Jason, that she was going to be tailgating in her dressing room before the show “because at Arrowhead Stadium, it’s famous for tailgating.”
She assumed the Kelces wouldn’t have time to join them, but “then I get [a] text. I open it. It’s a picture of Travis and Jason Kelce in my dressing room eating barbecue. I’m like, ‘They’re tailgating. They’re here.’” (Jason, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles but has since retired, made an appearance on that week’s episode of SNL, playing a boyfriend of Gardner’s character.)
Gardner said she thinks Kelce is “the only host in SNL history that’s ever tailgated before hosting the show. She previously revealed that she felt “very protective” of Kelce when he hosted the show.
She revealed that her other dream hosts would be Kelce’s teammate Patrick Mahomes, LeBron James, Catherine O’Hara, Nicolas Cage and her Shrinking co-star Harrison Ford.
