Claim:
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes donated $1.5 million to a relief fund for victims of the July 2025 Texas floods, and also rented apartments for homeless families.
A rumor that circulated online in July 2025 claimed Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a three-time Super Bowl MVP, donated $1.5 million to a relief fund for victims of the devastating Texas flash floods over the Fourth of July weekend. Users posting the rumor further claimed he rented apartments for homeless families, and also shared other claims about Mahomes' alleged quiet acts of generosity following the storms.
Mahomes, born in Tyler, Texas, played high school football in the city of Whitehouse, then attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock. All three cities are located several hundred miles from Kerr County, the site of most of the 100-plus reported deaths during the floods. Officials said more than 160 people are missing, as of this writing.
As one example of a user sharing the rumor, on July 7, the manager of a Facebook profile named NFL Legend posted (archived) a photo of Mahomes alongside pictures allegedly showing victims of the recent floods. The post received more than 158,000 reactions, as of this writing.
(NFL Legend/Facebook)
The post, accompanied in the comments by an article hosted on a WordPress blog named Update Nhanh, read:
While Cowboys owner Jerry Jones — with a reported net worth of $17.8 billion — just gave $500,000 to Texas flood relief, it was Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes who shook the nation with what he did next. When the heartbreaking news broke that 51 lives were lost in the flood — including 27 young girls swept away at a summer camp — Mahomes couldn't hold back his tears. He didn't just donate $1.5 million to the relief fund; he also paid out of pocket to rent two apartments for families left homeless by the storm. But it was what he said — not what he gave — that truly broke everyone… Read more below
However, while the Dallas Cowboys trulypledged $500,000 to Texas flood relief, theVietnam-based user managing the NFL Legend profile posted a fabricated story about Mahomes donating $1.5 million to victims and renting apartments for affected families. Searches ofBing,DuckDuckGo,Google andYahoo found no news media outlets publishing articles on the matter. Prominent outlets would have widely reported this rumor, if true.
Snopes emailed the Kansas City Chiefs front office to ask about the rumor and will update this story if we learn more.
False stories about Mahomes circulate following floods
In the post, the user shared an outdated death toll for the floods, and inaccurately referenced the all-girls Christian camp Camp Mystic as losing "27 young girls." According to the Camp Mysticwebsite, their death toll of 27 included not just campers but also counselors.Reverse-image searches for the pictures of flood victims found that photographers captured all four photos in Texas. However, one of the photos dated to2016, while a different photographer capturedthe other three in 2024 — meaning they had nothing to do with the July 2025 floods.
Other Facebook users shared similar false claims alleging Mahomes performed various acts of generosity following the floods, includingdonating $1 million (archived),sent "Mahomes"-labeled helicopters with aid (archived) anddonated $200,000 and pledged to build 30 homes (archived). Another untrue claim said Mahomes' wife, Brittany Mahomes,lost a sister named Courtney in the floods. According toPeople.com, she does not have a sister. These posts also featured links in top comments leading to articles hosted by WordPress blogs similar to the Update Nhanh blog.
The people who first posted these stories continued the tradition of Facebook posts featuring fictional, inspirational tales depicting celebrities and/or athletes performing inspiring acts of kindness. Those users aimed to earn advertising revenue on the blogs linked from their posts' comments. An examination of the articles and some of the posts' pictures found indications of artificial intelligence-generated images and text.
These stories all very much resembledglurge, which Dictionary.comdefines as "stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental."
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on other rumors about Mahomes, including claims hedonated $4.7 million to charities,rejected $10 million from tech billionaire and former U.S. President Donald Trump adviser Elon Musk, andbought a hotel and fired employees after experiencing racism.
Sources
Biography.com Editors, and Tyler Piccotti. "Patrick Mahomes Achieved a Rare Super Bowl Feat After Kansas City's Comeback Victory." Biography, 12 Feb. 2024, https://www.biography.com/athletes/patrick-mahomes.
Blackwood, Emily. "All About Brittany Mahomes' Brother Devin Matthews." People.com, 25 Aug. 2024, https://people.com/all-about-brittany-mahomes-brother-devin-matthews-8697571.
Camp Mystic for Girls. https://www.campmystic.com/.
Dedaj, Paulina. "NFL, Texans and Cowboys Pledge $1.5M Collectively to Communities Impacted by Texas Floods." Fox News, 6 Jul. 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nfl-texans-cowboys-pledge-1-5m-collectively-communities-impacted-texas-floods.
DeMillo, Andrew, et al. "An 8-Year-Old Who Loved Drama and Sports Is among Those Killed in Texas Floods." The Associated Press, 6 Jul. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/texas-floods-missing-hill-country-victims-camp-68b25cdb4d72f7eddff576af4ef7d400.
Finley, Ben, and Nadia Lathan. "Focus on First Responders' Mental Health Grows as Death Toll Rises in Flood-Ravaged Texas." The Associated Press, 9 Jul. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/texas-floods-search-first-responders-mental-health-33fc7cb66093694d380e5d95a9b72d98.
"Glurge." Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/glurge.
Gutierrez, Paul. "'Magic' Mahomes Wins His Third Super Bowl MVP." ESPN.com, 11 Feb. 2024, https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/\_/id/39509440/patrick-mahomes-wins-super-bowl-mvp-third.
Huberman, Bond, and David Emery. "Snopestionary: What Does 'Glurge' Mean?" Snopes, 21 Aug. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//articles/363643/what-does-glurge-mean/.
Hurt, Alyson, et al. "Graphics: Where the Texas Floods Happened and How High the Waters Rose." NPR, 8 Jul. 2025. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2025/07/08/g-s1-76471/guadalupe-river-texas-flood-map.