In celebration of the World Cup, Jason and Travis Kelce brought their New Heights podcast to Los Angeles — which is currently serving as one of the host cities — on Monday night for a rowdy live show, featuring both Hollywood and athlete surprise guests.
The event took over downtown L.A.’s Orpheum Theatre and welcomed hundreds of fans decked out in NFL jerseys, along with one woman dressed as a Taylor Swift lookalike and Jason and Travis’ mother Donna Kelce, who got a big cheer as she walked through the crowd. There was little mention of Swift throughout the night, though she and Travis are rumored to be just days away from their wedding; however, she did appear on a graphic spoofing the Pretty Woman poster, with she and Travis in gender-swapped roles and renamed Pretty Man. After Travis’ picky eating habits had been mocked earlier in the night, the show also closed with a video of her feeding Travis, “here comes the airplane” style.
New Heights launches its fifth season in September with the start of the NFL season, and kicked off the live show with an appearance from Will Ferrell. He chatted with the brothers about this summer’s 20-year anniversary of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and his upcoming golf comedy The Hawk, a 10-episode series that Ferrell stars in as Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins, who is an aging golfer seeking his great comeback.
Ferrell said from the time he was kid in AYSO soccer he “loved playing sports, I loved being on a team, and it led to loving working in film, working on an ensemble show like Saturday Night Live, where it’s all about teamwork. That’s what I thought I was going to do prior to going into comedy, was be a sportscaster, so I think it’s always an easy reference point for me in terms of combining two things I love” in making sports comedies. He added that The Hawk “was just a great opportunity to kind of send up golf and the PGA in a way that hadn’t really been done before. And Netflix just kind of let us make a very fun old-school comedy, with horribly unredeemable characters.”
During the convo Ferrell also joked about his love of dressing up to attend NHL games, gave his recs for L.A. burgers and Mexican food (highlighting In-N-Out, Burger She Wrote, Holbox and La Escuela) and revealed his love for the Hollywood celeb tour buses. “I love pulling up to one of those, taking off my sunglasses, and just being like, ‘Hey, see anyone famous yet?’” and then driving off, Ferrell said. “Or I’ll pull up and go, ‘It’s all lies, everything he says to you. Madonna does not live there.’”
After the sit-down, Jason Kelce revealed his lifelong dream to dunk, and proceeded to go for multiple attempts on an on-stage hoop with help from Ferrell and Travis. He finally nailed it, as all three ran around the stage to celebrate.
Later on in the show, the brothers brought out U.S. women’s soccer stars Alex Morgan and Kelley O’Hara for a discussion about the World Cup, as Travis declared, “I’ll say it’s about time the men started acting like the U.S. women out here.” Along with some fans from the audience, Morgan and O’Hara then faced off against Jason, who donned a U.S. bobsled suit and played goalie in an on-stage net.
L.A. Rams alum Andrew Whitworth and star Myles Garrett, fresh off of his trade to the team, also made an appearance, as the group mused about superstar Aaron Donald possibly coming out of retirement to join Garrett on the Rams defense. “Now that I’m fully retired, I really want to see it,” Jason joked.
Jason Kelce
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Wondery
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