Donna Kelce is getting her due! The proud NFL mom of Jason and Travis Kelce has had one of the most exciting years a parent could imagine, and she’s capping it off by being included on PEOPLE’s 25 Most Intriguing People of the Year list.
The list, released Tuesday morning, places the beloved 71-year-old football mom alongside the likes of Beyoncé, David Beckham, Margot Robbie and, of course, her son’s new girlfriend Taylor Swift. “It’s been a ride. That’s for sure,” Donna told PEOPLE last month about her whirlwind of a year. “Sometimes I feel I’m on some kind of a different planet. I’m like, ‘What has my life become?’ ” A retired banking executive and a grandmother of three, Donna’s year started off like a dream when both of her sons — Jason, 36, and Travis, 34 — reached Super Bowl LVII. Travis’ Kansas City Chiefs edged Jason’s Philadelphia Eagles’ by a score of 38-35, marking history as they became the first brothers to ever face off against one another in the Super Bowl. Donna endearingly struggled to choose sides in the matchup, eventually settling for a split Chiefs-Eagles jacket that donned equal support for both of her boys. “They’re equal,” she told PEOPLE before the big game.
But while Donna’s split support for her sons helped her become a household name among NFL fans, it wasn’t until late in the summer of 2023 when rumors began to swirl about Travis’ love life that the 71-year-old’s fame seemingly skyrocketed overnight. PEOPLE reported in late September that Swift, 33, was in attendance at the Chiefs’ home game against the Chicago Bears. After sitting alongside Donna throughout the game, the “Blank Space” singer was then spotted leaving the stadium with Travis — the first time the couple had been seen publicly together after roughly two months of rumors and each of them playing coy about their budding romance. From there, the Swift and Kelce phenomenon only grew larger. Fresh off the theatrical release of her Eras Tour concert, Swift has made it out to five of Travis’ football games so far this season while the two-time Super Bowl champion even used his team’s bye week last month to fly out to Argentina for a low-key date night and to see her perform live.
A source close to the Kelce family told PEOPLE in October that “Donna likes Taylor and thinks she’s very sweet and down to earth.” In the matter of months, Donna has gone from being known among her sons’ teammates for her “famous” home-baked cookies to sharing a stadium suite with one of the world’s biggest pop stars week-in and week-out. “I thought it would be over at that point, but it seems to just continue, and every week just seems to trump the week before,” Donna told the Got It From My Momma podcast in October, reflecting on her and her family’s meteoric rise in popularity in recent months “It’s really kind of wild, a wild ride.”
