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In the wake of Shane Gillis’ misogynistic rant on the SNL stage, who still supports him?

Travis Kelce signaled his support for the controversial comedian, inviting scrutiny into his own character.

As fans and critics alike went digging, they came up with tweets that do not paint him in a positive like?

Are they real? Mom Donna Kelce says that they’re phony.

Did he really say these things?

In 2013, Travis began his career as a professional football player.

Tweets attributed to him dating back to earlier dates — between 2009 and 2011 — are now resurfacing.

One reads: “As a man, You have something wrong with you if your going for girls that weigh more then you.”

Another reads: “Damn the clippers girls gotta be the s–tty girls that dont make the lakers girls team, cuz they all was ugly.”

Even if one were to ignore the clumsy grammatical errors, these tweets are filled with body-shaming and misogyny. They are not the only tweets about “ugly girls” from this one account.

On Saturday, October 17, a now-suspended account tweeted about these to Donna, Travis’ 74-year-old mother.

“Not Travis’ handle,” she replied in a tweet, “and not his account!!”

However, the “@tkelce” account does appear to be Travis’ — and there are even old replies in which Donna sent her love and well wishes while tagging that user handle.

Multiple outlets, including The New York Times and Snopes, have reported on these old tweets.

Many are seeing Travis in a new light. Is he not as good of a person as many (especially Taylor Swift fans) had come to believe?

Is he a better person today than he was in 2010?

These old tweets are abhorrent. That is indisputable. But discussing them requires a level of nuance that many may find to be a struggle.

In 2009 and 2010, social media was full of “ironically” bad takes. Especially in the early days of Twitter — many hoped to be provocateurs, and things like fake bigotry were seen as humorous.

Also, this was 15 years ago. Travis would have been in his early 20s.

Today, someone in their early 20s posting misogynistic vileness would be inexcusable. In a time when this form of humor was prevalent, however, we might view things differently.

Finally, of course, people learn and grow and improve all of the time — especially over a decade and a half. Has Travis?

Unfortunately, though many people may change and grow into better people over time, this is not universal or guaranteed.

Travis, in 2026, appears to be showing support for Shane Gillis. We do not believe in guilt by association, but it speaks about his character that he would associate with someone so vile.

Also in 2026, Travis and Taylor invited Brad Pitt to their wedding. Again, we do not believe in guilt by association, but yikes.

Travis clearly has more learning and growing to do as a person. We hope that he works on that, but won’t hold our breath.

Suffice it to say that, with the exception of rare extremes, we are not too concerned about tweets dating back to President Obama’s first term.

Travis’ more recent errors in judgment are much more relevant to his character today.

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