Heidi Gardner sat next to Josh Allen on plane, was so ‘starstruck’ she couldn’t speak
This is how big a football fan Heidi Gardner is.
Yes, the “Saturday Night Live” star who grew up in Kansas City is an avid, lifelong Chiefs fan. But she can appreciate talented players no matter what uniform they wear, which she demonstrated in a conversation she had with a Bills team reporter before the Chiefs lost to Buffalo Sunday.
Gardner — who wore a red hoodie decorated with photos of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — revealed she got all starstruck when she sat next to Bills quarterback Josh Allen on a flight this past summer.
“I was shocked that, like, what should be a rival of mine, I was so starstruck,” Gardner told Maddy Glab, host of the weekly “You Herd?” show on YouTube.
“I think it was a three-and-a-half hour flight and it took me three-and-a half hours to build up the courage to even know what to say to him ... I watch Bills games when they’re on, even when they’re not playing the Chiefs ... I love good football. And this is someone who has given so much to the game.”
Gardner said she didn’t “want to bug him,” but when the plane landed and she was getting all her stuff together, she gushed over him.
“I was just like, ‘Thank you for everything you do on Sundays. Thank you for giving your life and body to us fans.’ And he was very nice … so I just want to say big respect there,” she said.
Glab asked her to name her favorite “SNL” celebrity host and Gardner, no surprise, name-checked Kelce, who hosted the show last year just weeks after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl.
Gardner, who has spoken often of that show, once again called it an unbelievable experience.
She recounted how her “whole family and friends came out for the show and we tailgated in my dressing room before the show. And the Kelce brothers came and ate barbecue and I’m like, that’s why Travis rules,” she said.
“I guarantee it, no other host of ‘SNL’ has ever tailgated before a show, before they go out and do their monologue just has a whole heaping plate of barbecue. It was awesome.”
She said she always gives herself a pep talk to be cool before an athlete hosts the show.
“But my fandom always gets in the way and I have such little sister vibes. What do you eat game day? What’s your recovery? I just want to know everything. Who’s the hardest guy to block? I can’t help it,” she said.
Glab asked about the skit where Kelce spun her around in the air in a sketch about NFL players giving back to their communities by lifting women whose boyfriends can’t lift them.
Kelce draped Gardner over his shoulder. His teammate, Creed Humphrey, lifted “SNL” cast member Ego Nwodim onto a kitchen counter and Jason Kelce gave Chloe Fineman a piggyback ride.
“It was so funny and it was, I think it was fun for all the women who got picked up,” Gardner said. “I don’t know, for me, other than when I was a toddler, I’ve never just been ... thrown through the air with such ease and grace.
“And it’s funny. It’s like, there’s one where he picked me up and then (spun) me around, and I was like, ‘I’m free, I’m like a little girl.’ … I see my smile in that moment and I’m like, I remember, I was flying. It was special.”
Gardner said, as she has before, that she would like to see Patrick Mahomes host the show. “But that’s greedy,” she laughed. “How can you have two Chiefs?”
She also said Jason Kelce “would be amazing.”
“But you know what, I’ll give you guys one, too: I think we’d all want to work with Josh Allen, too,” Gardner said. “Kind of loosen him up, get him giggling. That would be fun ... He’s welcome anytime.”
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