Travis Kelce: Viral story of his gift for homeless was a fake generated by AI
Since 2015, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has made a point of giving back to the Kansas City community, especially those in need.
Kelce’s Eighty-Seven & Running foundation has worked with “underserved youth” in Kansas City, along with his home state of Ohio, and he has worked closely with Operation Breakthrough.
So it didn’t seem to be a big surprise when a story began circulating that he had purchased a $3.3 million home in Kansas City to help homeless youth. That first popped up last fall, then the story gained traction again last month and many, many news outlets wrote about his generosity.
That feel-good story also was widely shared on all the social media channels.
But here’s the thing: It’s not true.
The first clues about that have popped up recently. ESPN’s Pat McAfee shared a message on X about the $3.3 million home, but soon after deleted that post. And the website Foster Love took down a story about Kelce’s purchase for homeless youth that was the basis for those national articles about his generosity.
Kelce apparently made a point of having those stories removed, and on the latest episode of his New Heights podcast he mentioned the story without mentioning the story.
Pat McAfee shout-out
Kelce said on the podcast the story of the homeless gift was AI generated but he appreciated the kind words from his friend at ESPN.
“I gotta make a little statement in the ‘don’t believe everything you read kids’ category or nice realm that you see online,” Kelce said. “Some false claims were thrown out there that I was doing something in the community that I was not. And I’m not even going to talk about it specifically. I don’t want to bring any more attention to that whole nonsense and article and all that stuff. But if you ever want to know exactly what I’m doing in the community, just go to 87running.org. We’re always trying to get out there and get in the Kansas City community and the Cleveland community.
“But you know, this time, I wasn’t doing what was falsely claimed by the social channels or the outlets posting all this AI stuff. So just wanted to set the record straight. Appreciate everybody for always trying to show love, especially Pat McAfee is always trying to look out for the guys and women in the sports world. And, yeah, thanks you guys.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2025 at 7:20 AM.
