Travis Kelce’s mom, Donna Kelce, opened up about her former marriage to Ed Kelce, and the mom of two admitted that she knew their relationship “wasn’t working.”
“We stayed together for the kids,” Donna, 71, explained in an interview with Glamour published on Thursday, October 3. “Ours was a very friendly relationship. So, we could do that and make sure that their life was as normal as possible. But in that one respect, I did stand still for several years until I could move on on my own.”
Donna and Ed were married for 25 years before they divorced after both of their sons had graduated from college.
The mom of, not one, but two Super Bowl champions also admitted that her financial contribution to the family made it hard for her and Ed to split.
“I was a commercial banker for a bank in several different states. I wanted to get ahead. I worked really, really hard. I was a major breadwinner in the family,” she explained. “And I think it’s important for kids to see that a woman can do whatever she wants, but I did stand still, too.”
Despite her job in banking, it comes as no surprise that Donna excelled at being a mom, even though she considers it “the hardest thing [she’s] ever done in [her] life.”
“It’s so much easier to just go to work, but raising children, when they’re totally dependent on you and you’re trying to do the best you can with the limited resources that you have, it’s the most daunting task I’ve ever had to do,” the Kelce matriarch explained.
Donna also expanded on whether or not she knew that Travis, 34, or his older brother, Jason Kelce, were going to excel to such a level in sports.
“You don’t understand how your children relate to other children across the country. You know what they’re doing in your particular part of the world, but until they start getting involved in tournaments or people outside of your city, then you understand that they’re different, and you just try as a parent, I think, to support your child in whatever they love to do and just revel in it really,” Donna said.
She continued, “They didn’t start playing football until they were in the seventh grade. So there were many other sports like hockey, lacrosse, basketball—everything you could possibly imagine. They were always athletic, but you just don’t know until you start getting those letters from colleges and then, OK, they may have something.”
However, Donna pointed out that she never wanted Travis or Jason, 36, to feel superior to the kids around them. The two NFL pros found fame later in life, but their mom still kept them grounded.
“I think you just bring things up that they did when they were children to just show them that they’re like everybody else—how many broken windows there were, how many times I had a call from the neighbor. They weren’t mean children or bad children; it’s just that they were very rambunctious. I think it’s just bringing them back to their childhood—what they’re most grateful for and where they were able to have a platform to grow.”
