Travis Kelce Said His Reading Difficulties Made Hosting SNL Hard

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2 days ago

Sure, dating Taylor Swift has certainly boosted Travis Kelce's global popularity outside of the sporting world. But it's fair to say he was already pretty famous before they crossed paths — famous enough, in fact, to host Saturday Night Live.
Yep, in March 2023, shortly after winning his second Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end followed in the footsteps of many Hollywood stars before him and made his hosting debut on SNL.
Joined by Kelsea Ballerini as the episode's musical guest, Travis's turn on the sketch show was met with tons of praise, with viewers hailing him as a natural on the SNL stage. One glowing review from the Guardian said at the time that he massively 'exceeded expectations' and '[knocked] it out of the park' as a comedic performer — not too shabby!
You can watch his opening monologue here. Honestly, it still holds up!
And so, some two-and-a-bit years later, it turns out that Travis found certain aspects of the experience quite challenging, not that we'd have been able to tell.
Speaking on the July 1 episode of the Bussin' With the Boys podcast, Travis reflected on his 'crazy ride' hosting SNL and admitted that he found the table read with the entire cast super challenging as 'a guy that can't really read that well.'
'It was kind of a fucked situation,' he recalled. 'I felt like I was just trying to get through the reading instead of actually, like, acting it out and giving it a voice and giving it a character and things like that. Like, I was just focused on, 'Don't fucking skip this line.''
Describing himself as someone who's 'more of an audio guy,' he said the table read 'was the hardest fucking part' of the entire process.
If you've watched SNL for a long time, you'll know that sports stars don't always make the best hosts. With that in mind, Travis said he was eager to impress, especially given that he felt surprisingly 'comfortable' taking on all the comedy and 'silly stuff.'
'There was still a sense of, I need to be a professional here,' he said, looking back. 'I wanna have fun doing it, but I don't wanna look like a loser doing this. I wanna make them respect my approach and how I'm taking it serious.'
'It was just a fun rollercoaster,' he went on. 'You're there all week, fucking up to 2, 3 in the morning every day just trying to knock stuff out, do some of the prerecorded stuff. That was insane. That was a crazy ride. That was fun.'
Honestly, I think it's about time they invited him back to host again. Lorne Michaels, if you're reading this…