Did Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce vow to quit the Kansas City Chiefs immediately if the football team doesn't fire kicker Harrison Butker? No, that's not true: This claim initially appeared in an article on a satirical website known for publishing fabricated content. While Kelce has released a statement specifically addressing an incident involving Butker, it does not substantiate any portion of the claim.
The claim appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) on May 19, 2024. The caption said:
Travis Kelce Vows to Quit Chiefs Immediately if Team Doesn't Fire Harrison Butker
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri May 24 21:46:16 2024 UTC)
The watermark on the image in the post reads "Rated Satire." That reflects a link pinned into the post's comment section that leads to a SpacexMania.com article (archived here) titled, "Breaking: Travis Kelce Vows to Quit Chiefs Immediately if Team Doesn't Fire Harrison Butker."
The article did not cite any credible sources that could substantiate this claim. The About Satire section on the SpaceXMania.com website's Disclaimer page (archived here) reads, in part:
Please note that the article under the category 'SATIRE' are satirical in nature and are not meant to be taken seriously. These articles are meant to be humorous and are often entirely made up. We make no claim that the information presented in these articles is true or accurate.
In a May 24, 2024, episode of "New Heights," the podcast Kelce co-hosts with his brother, Jason Kelce, the Kansas City player commented about teammate Harrison Butker's controversial May 11, 2024, speech at Benedictine College. At the 25:00 mark in the episode, titled "Chiefs OTAs Commence, Brand New Segments, and Jason Pushes it. Pushes it Real Good | Ep 91," Travis Kelce said:
I can't say I agree with the majority of it or just about any of it outside of just him loving his family and his kids and I don't think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views, of how to go about life. That's just not who I am.
At no point in the podcast did Kelce say he will quit the Kansas City Chiefs immediately if the team does not fire Butker for his remarks.
Snopes earlier reviewed the same claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Travis Kelce, Harrison Butker and the SpaceXMania website can be read here, here and here.
