Travis Kelce has landed his first TV presenting role – hosting the game show Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?
The American Football star – who has become more famous since he began dating Taylor Swift last year – plays for the Kansas City Chiefs and helped them win the Super Bowl for a second year running in February.
Kelce and Swift at Coachella. Pic: Jennifer Johnson/Shutterstock for Neon Carnival
Their high-profile relationship has been credited with bringing NFL a legion of new fans, and causing a buzz every time they’re seen out together, including their recent date night at the Coachella music festival.
The Prime Video production is a spin-off of the popular US game show Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, which first aired on Fox in 2007 and was hosted by US comedian Jeff Foxworthy.
It was later revived by Nickelodeon in 2019, fronted by action star John Cena, and also spawned a board game and a book.
In the UK, the show was remade as Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old?, and was fronted by Noel Edmonds, and later by Dick and Dom.
In Kelce’s new spin-off of the show, an adult contestant will be given 11 elementary-level questions which they can ask a classroom of various celebrities for help answering.
The final question is from the sixth grade curriculum and is worth $100,000 (£80,000). Only one celebrity is allowed to talk through the answer to the last question with the contestant. Sixth grade students in the US are usually 11-12 years old.
Filming for the 20-episode series has already finished.
Swift at this year’s Super Bowl with Kelce. Pic: Reuters
‘The ultimate class clown’
Kelce said in a statement that he grew up watching game shows and is “excited to be following in the footsteps of so many TV icons”.
He went on: “The original show is a great success, so to be bringing a new format with everyone’s favourite celebrities to the screen, will definitely be entertaining.
“I’m just happy to be on the hosting side of the equation here and excited to see how these famous faces keep up.”
The original series co-creator Barry Poznick called Kelce “the ultimate class clown,” adding, “replacing the kids with celebrities gives us more laughs and surprises, like a roast, as contestants cheat off their famous classmates”.
Earlier this month, Kelce picked up his degree from the University of Cincinnati, 12 years after he finished his course.
He completed his remaining credit hours in 2022 to earn his degree in interdisciplinary studies, according to The Cincinnati Inquirer.
Producer, podcaster and festival founder
Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity? isn’t Kelce’s first TV role. He starred in his own 2016 dating competition show for E! called Catching Kelce and hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live last year.
He’s also a producer on the upcoming documentary King Pleasure, about American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
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Away from TV, he co-hosts a podcast New Heights with his brother, fellow NFL star Jason Kelce, chatting about popular culture as well as football.
He has also launched his own music festival, Kelce Jam, which will take place for the second year later this month, with starts including Lil Wayne and Diplo headlining.
