Heidi Gardner Apologizes to Taylor Swift for Cozy Travis Kelce ‘SNL’ Skit

Heidi Gardner enlisted Travis Kelce for a pair of romantic sketches during his Saturday Night Live debut last year, but she poses no threat to his girlfriend, Taylor Swift.

“It was cool because right before dress rehearsal, we were in a scene where we — sorry, Taylor — were in bed together,” Gardner, 40, recalled during the Friday, May 3, broadcast of Today. “He leaned into me right before lights up on the scene and he’s like, ‘I’ve been eating Uncrustables [sandwiches] all day.’ And I was like, ‘Cool.’”

Kelce, 34, hosted SNL for the first time in March 2023, several months before he started dating Swift, also 34. During the variety series, he joined Gardner for a sketch called “Garrett From Hinge” where they played a couple getting ready for bed when her former dating app match (played by Bowen Yang) interrupted their moment. In a follow-up skit, Kelce starred in an “NFL Gives Back” PSA spoof for women with small boyfriends and had to lift Gardner in the air.

Before Kelce killed it on the variety show, Gardner knew it would be a success several months prior when she pitched his appearance to showrunner Lorne Michaels. (Gardner, a Kansas City local, is a big-time fan of Kelce and his Chiefs football team.)

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“[Lorne] said, ‘Well, he has to win the Super Bowl,’” she recalled on Friday. “And I was like, ‘Well, that’s a really big ask.’ And then he went and won the Super Bowl! Then he went and hosted SNL and I feel like [he] won SNL. He did such a great job.”

Kelce and the Chiefs won the 2023 Super Bowl, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles. In Travis’ SNL monologue, he joked that the victory was “pretty awkward” because brother Jason Kelce played on the Eagles. (Jason, 36, retired from professional football in March.)