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Donna Kelce wasn’t always her name.
And there was a time before she brought football titans Jason and Travis Kelce into the world, let alone became Taylor Swift’s mother-in-law.
Having watched her sons find love, what was Donna’s history of marriage and divorce?
Let’s take a look.
She’s one of the most famous moms on the planet
Donna Blalock was born on October 9, 1952.
She grew up in a small house in downtown Cleveland, living below her grandparents.
Against her father’s wishes, she got into sports.
Donna then became the first in her family to graduate from college, going on to earn an MBA.
But it was at a Cleveland bar when she met the man who would change the direction of her life forever.
At Fagan’s, a bar in Cleveland, she met a man by the name of Ed Kelce.
Donna was actually supposed to be going on a date with someone else that day.
Ed used a pickup line that made her laugh, and they ended up spending hours talking — even moving to a second bar in the process.
This was in the late 1970s, which was also when they married.
They would remain a couple for decades.
The marriage did not last
Donna worked in banking, traveling to multiple states for work.
She was something of a breadwinner. This role would leave an important impression on her sons.
In 1987, the couple welcomed Jason Kelce, who rose to fame playing football for a team called the Philadelphia Eagles.
Then, in 1989, the couple welcomed Travis Kelce, who arguably rose to the most fame through Taylor Swift. He is also a football player, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs.
In 2022, Travis and Jason made history as the first brothers to play against each other in the Super Bowl. Notably, this was when Donna began to rise as a public figure, due to media attention.
After decades together — about 25 years total, it’s reported — Donna and Ed divorced.
They had both known that it was coming for a while. The marriage simply wasn’t working.
However, they had opted to remain married until both sons were adults and off to college.
This is not always a good strategy. In some cases, it leads to toxic home lives and can skew their children’s adult relationships.
But, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the Kelce family — especially given Travis and Jason’s relationships. Donna says that she and Ed remain good friends to this day.
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