Listen, Heidi Gardner doesn't want to take all the credit for being the reason Travis Kelce hosted Saturday Night Live, but I think a little bit is totally fair. The born-and-raised, Kansas City girl and SNL cast member grew up a Chiefs fan, and knew that the hometown hero had the chops to handle the live crowd at New York City's iconic Studio 8H in Rockefeller Plaza.
"I don't want to take full credit from the show and the talent department," she explained during her recent appearance on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. "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." So she knew up-close-and-personal about his own comedic chops.
All of her haranguing and begging for consideration was "pre-Taylor" (as in his now-girlfriend, Taylor Swift), mind you—so don't go thinking her reasoning had anything to do with all that, either. She's simply always been a Chiefs girlie and sought to give the people what she knew they would want.
Once showrunner and series creator Lorne Michaels came up with a condition under which he could see Kelce host—things got real. "Lorne was like, 'Well, he has to win the Super Bowl,'" Gardner explained. "I was like, 'That is so much pressure to ask!'"
"And then he won the Super Bowl," she added—and indeed he did.
Kelce went on to host the March 4, 2023 episode of the long-running, late night comedy sketch series to much fanfare. And who knows? Maybe his charming appearance on the series—like in the sketch above—helped ol' T. Swift see him in a different light (they started dating, officially, in September of that year).
Either way, we're here to say, "thank you, Heidi!" And please allow yourself a little credit, because I don't think Kelce could have done it so well without you rooting for him.
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