Heidi Gardner is opening up about her time with Travis Kelce when he was the Saturday Night Live host in March 2023, following the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl.
The SNL castmember stopped by Today with Hoda & Jenna on Friday, where she discussed how she initially suggested to Lorne Michaels that Kelce host the sketch comedy series before he made it big, with the hosts joking that Gardner loved him before Taylor Swift did.
As a Kansas City, Missouri, native, the comedian told Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager she was “very protective” of the Chiefs tight end. She added, “I asked him questions, which also, as a sports fan, I’m just interested in, but I was like, ‘On game day, what do you eat?’ And he was like, ‘Uncrustables. I’m just pounding Uncrustables.’”
On the day of the hosting gig, the Shrinking actress told the morning show hosts that she went to the store and bought a bunch of Uncrustables for Kelce to snack on. “I was like, ‘I want this to feel as much like home as it can,’” she said.
She shared that when the two of them were rehearsing for a sketch in which they were lying in bed together (“Sorry, Taylor,” she joked), he expressed his appreciation for the gift.
“He leaned over into me right before lights up on the scene, and he was like, ‘I’ve been eating the Uncrustables all day.’ And I was like, ‘Cool,’” she said, adding that she thought he “won SNL” and did “such a good job.”