Retired Eagles center Jason Kelce offered an apology during ESPN’s pregame show Monday night after an incident where he grabbed the phone of an unruly fan and smashed it to the ground before the Ohio State-Penn State game last weekend.
“In a heated moment, I decided to greet hate with hate,” Kelce admitted prior to ESPN’s broadcast of the Buccaneers-Chiefs game, which featured his brother, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. “I fell short this week.”
The incident occurred when Jason Kelce attended the Big Ten showdown between the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions in State College, Pennsylvania. As Kelce walked through a crowd near Beaver Stadium, fans asked for photos and fist bumps, but one fan began to heckle him. In response, Kelce grabbed the heckler’s phone and threw it to the ground. He then turned to confront the fan, who was dressed in Penn State attire. Another bystander intervened before the situation could escalate further.
“I think everybody has seen on social media what happened this week,” Kelce stated on the ESPN broadcast. “Listen, I’m not happy with anything that took place. I’m not proud of it. In a heated moment, I chose to greet hate with hate and I just don’t think that’s a productive thing, I really don’t. I don’t think it leads to discourse and it’s the right way to go about things. In that moment I fell down to a level that I shouldn’t have.”
Kelce emphasized the importance of treating others with respect. “The bottom line is, I try to live my life by the golden rule, that’s what I’ve always been taught,” he said. “I try to treat people with common decency and respect, and I’m going to keep doing that moving forward.”
