Travis Kelce Admits Hosting SNL Was The Hardest Because He Couldn't Read That Well

NFL star Travis Kelce may know his way around the gridiron, but when it came to handling the cue cards on Saturday Night Live, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end says he was left in foreign territory. "The table reading, for a guy that can't really read that well," Kelce said in a recent appearance on the Bussin' With the Boys podcast, as he looked back on his March 2023 hosting performance. "It was kind of a f--ked situation," Kelce said, in true Kelce fashion.

For someone new to deciphering intricate playbooks rather than punchlines, the read-through of the sketch seemed like a losing battle, was just trying to get through the reading instead of actually acting it out and giving it a voice and giving it a character," he added, explaining feeling the pressure to perform in front of the whole cast and crew, all while working through unfamiliar scripts.

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Nervous as he could be, Kelce didn't back down. He called the table read the "hardest f—king part," but admitted he was "so much more comfortable" in sketch comedy's "precision" than he would have been in a serious acting part. That's not to say he did the gig lightly. Despite three Super Bowl rings of his own, Kelce showed up to SNL as if it were his first rodeo, and his last.

That time he opened up about fighting to read, for one, only cements his position as a renowned truth-teller, a trait fans still adore about him. Not many athletes of his magnitude talk so openly about their own personal insecurities on such a public stage. But Kelce is not all touchdowns and headlines. He is growth, risk, and real. True to Kelce form, he did it with heart, he did it with hustle, and he did it with humor, even if there were a few lines to get tripped up on here and there.