Ed and Donna Kelce raised two boys who not only ended up in the NFL but eventually played against each other in the Super Bowl. Jason Kelce and the Philadelphia Eagles took on Travis Kelce and his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, in the 2023 game. The Chiefs won by a narrow margin, but both brothers are Super Bowl winners. (Jason won with The Eagles in 2017.)
The boys have become increasingly famous with the success of their New Heights podcast and Travis’s relationship with pop star Taylor Swift. By extension, Ed and Donna have gotten more attention, too. Here’s everything to know about the parents of these star athletes with whom Swift regularly spends time during her boyfriend’s games.
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Who is Donna Kelce?
Donna grew up in a suburb of Cleveland. Her mother passed away when she was only 12 years old, and her father remarried to her stepmother, Mary, with whom she had a close relationship. On an episode of New Heights, Donna stated, “By the grace of God, if we didn’t have [Mary], I don’t think we would have made it.”
Donna, like her sons, was an athlete, but her father was against women in sports. Mary supported her, and she eventually competed at the Junior Olympics in track and field. Though she had trained in secret from her dad, she won. Donna went on to college at Ohio University and eventually went into finance, working for Mastercard and then a local Cleveland bank specializing in commercial real estate.
Who is Ed Kelce?
Like Donna, Ed is from Cleveland and an athlete, playing football in high school. He went on to work in the steel industry at a mill. He told the Los Angeles Times that he’d bring his boys to visit from time to time.
“I’d take them there—hard hat, safety glasses, boots, the whole nine yards,” he said. “I’d tell them, ‘You can have a job like your mother’s, or you can have a job like mine.’”
They both went with a third option.
How did Ed and Donna meet?
Donna was on her way to a date with a different guy when she dropped by Fagan’s bar in Old Cleveland Flats. Ed chatted her up, and she had such a great time, she never met up with the other man.
“I was supposed to go out with a guy that night. We were supposed to go to a play, and I never made it. Your dad and I talked forever,” Donna told her sons on New Heights. “It was a good play, too! I really wanted to see it.”
Ed shared that he’d gone to the bar after work and wasn’t in his finest attire.
“I’m in coveralls that are covered in cement,” Ed picked up the story. “We started talking, and she gave me a ride home. She came in, and I told her, ‘Hold on, let me change.’”
Ed took a quick shower and then brought her to another bar.
“It was meant to be. It’s just the way it was,” Donna said.
They were married in the late 1970s and raised their children in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
How many kids do Ed and Donna Kelce have?
Donna and Ed only have two children, their football stars Jason and Travis. Jason was born in November 1987, and Travis was born in October 1989. Donna has suggested that their proximity in age led to a lot of fights and competition.
In an interview on the Today Show, she discussed breaking up “a lot of fights” when they were kids.
“Everything was a competition,” she explained. “It was a competition to see who could get to the table first, who could get to the front seat of the car—this is just typical sibling rivalry. They egged each other on.”
Both the boys went to the University of Cincinnati and played college football, so the competition pushed them even further.
Are Donna and Ed still together?
The pair divorced shortly after their sons finished college after a quarter century of marriage. However, they remain friends. On New Heights, Donna said, “I don’t hate him. We’re friends to this day. We get along great. We were like a tag team with you two. We got to do all sorts of fun things. When one of you had to go out of town, the other person would help with the other child. It was perfect.”
But she added that “sometimes people move apart.”
The former couple did admit in the 2023 documentary Kelce that they chose to stay together longer for the sake of their sons.
“If we had split as we probably both would have preferred, that would have been a nightmare with the logistics, getting kids where they had to be and providing all the support,” Ed said in an interview.
Ed moved from Cleveland to Philadelphia to be closer to Jason and his grandkids. Donna continues to travel regularly for appearances and to watch her sons play. She can often be spotted in the stands on game days.
What do they think of Taylor Swift?
Taylor Swift was first publicly linked to Travis in September 2023, attending a game at Arrowhead Stadium to launch their romance. She seemed to hit it off with Donna immediately and sat beside her in the VIP box throughout the season. She met Ed in October 2023, at the Chiefs and Denver Broncos game.
“I’ll tell you something very special that I noticed about Taylor the first time I met her. She gets up to go get a drink or something, and she starts picking up empty bottles, cans, plates that are scattered around. And that really, to me, said a whole lot,” he told People of their first meeting.
Donna also seems to think Swift is talented and down-to-earth, though she’s not really a pop music fan.
“My era was Earth, Wind and Fire [and] Chaka Khan,” she said, when asked about being a Swiftie. “That’s more my music. But obviously, talent is talent.”
Has Swift spent a lot of time with Donna and Ed?
Swift and Travis have kept some parts of their relationship private, but Swift hasn’t hidden how close she is to her boyfriend’s parents. She is regularly seen at Travis’s games sitting with them.
Most strikingly, Swift spent Travis’s first NFL 2024-2025 season game against the Baltimore Ravens with both Donna and Ed in a suite. She was filmed talking to Ed at the start of the September 5 game and photographed later spending quality time with Donna.
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taylor swift with ed kelce
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Swift spent time with Donna and her mom, Andrea Swift, in November 2024.
On November 4, Swift was hanging out with Donna again, this time with her mom, Andrea, joining them for Travis’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Kansas City. Swift wore all black with denim shorts, knee-high boots, and a black and red leather jacket, plus some gold jewelry.
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Ed attended Swift's show in Toronto in November 2024.
On Saturday, November 23, Ed was photographed in the audience at Toronto’s Rodgers Centre enjoying Swift’s last show in the city. He was smiling and wearing a number of beaded friendship bracelets. Travis was unable to make the concert because he had an away game in North Carolina on Sunday.
Ed spoke about what he sees Swift and Travis’s relationship being like after the 2025 Super Bowl.
Ed gave rare reflections on his son’s romance with Swift ahead of the 2025 Super Bowl. He told Australia’s Today show that he envisions great things in store for the duo once Travis finishes his season. “I think, you know, once we get past the Super Bowl, I think it’s going to be a very good period of time for the two of them,” he said, via Us Weekly. “Without the NFL season, without the Eras Tour. Just them alone really connecting more. I think that can only be a good thing.”
He also shared what it’s like watching Travis’s games with Swift. “She’s learning much more about football,” he said. “She’s watching football with her dad a lot. She’s watching football whenever she can. It was funny. We’re sitting in the game and the Chiefs were in the in the red zone. And they had… to go for a field goal. And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I hate field goals.’ And Taylor comes back and says, ‘I’ll take the points.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Look at you… a year ago you didn’t know a field goal from an extra point, and now you’re doing all this football talk.’ So I think she’s enjoying the game and she’s a very smart young lady.”
Donna Kelce subtly showed her support for the relationship in May 2025.
A fan account of Travis and his brother Jason shared a story on Instagram about Taylor and Travis enjoying a quiet dinner date at Harry’s in West Palm Beach on May 24. It seems like Donna keeps up with the account, because she dropped a “like” on the Instagram post, showing her support of the couple’s night out. Travis has reportedly been renting a $20 million residence in Boca Raton throughout the spring as he and Taylor take a break from the spotlight.