Retired Eagles center Jason Kelce apologized during ESPN’s pregame show Monday night after he took the phone of a disruptive fan and threw 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 said before the broadcast of the Buccaneers-Chiefs game, which featured his brother, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. “I fell short this week.”
Jason Kelce was at the Big Ten game between the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions in State College, Pennsylvania, when the incident happened. Video on social media showed him walking through a crowd near Beaver Stadium as fans asked for photos and fist bumps. One fan, however, started to heckle him.
At that point, Kelce grabbed the fan’s phone and threw it to the ground, then turned to confront the man who was wearing Penn State gear. Another fan stepped between them before things could escalate.
“I think everybody has seen on social media what happened this week,” Kelce said 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 good conversations, and it’s not the right way to handle things. In that moment, I lowered myself to a level I shouldn’t have.”
“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.”
