Can Travis Kelce Read? An Investigation - PAPER Magazine

Did everyone know there’s a sports podcast called Bussin’ With the Boys? Like, it’s a seemingly heterosexual endeavor wherein the title refers to taking a bus with the boys — probably other sports players. But do they know? Do they actually know about the rest of us bussin’ with the boys at Animal on Pride Weekend? Probably not, least of all guest Travis Kelce, who probably can’t read very well!

That’s not some convoluted Zoolander joke, either. On said podcast episode, the world’s most famous boyfriend revealed that the “hardest” thing during his SNL hosting stint was the pre-show table read. According to him, he “can’t really read that well.” He can, however, bus it with the boys. In fact, he’s probably bussin’ it with his boys right now!

The full podcast can be seen below. A word of warning though: it’s quite lengthy. When Kelce busses it with his boys, it appears he likes it nice and slow.

As he tells the hosts: “The writers’ rooms were fun because you’re just getting pitched ideas. The table reading, for a guy that can’t really read that well, it was kind of a fucked situation.” He adds that it felt like he was “just trying to get through the reading instead of actually acting it out and giving it a voice and giving it a character and things like that. I was just focused on, ‘Don’t fucking skip this line.'”

Later, he claims he wanted to “take advantage” of the opportunity but still “have fun doing it,” despite his hesitations he might look like “a loser doing this. I want to make them respect my approach and how I’m like, taking it serious.”

Now, on the question of whether he can read or not, the fact he got through the cue cards at all in his opening monologue speaks volumes. As he admitted onstage that night: “I was nervous about doing a monologue, but then I remembered, I’m pretty good with words. During games, I do these super eloquent pump-up speeches for my teammates.” Of course, they proceeded to cut into his monologue with clips of his not-so eloquent speeches, which mostly involved grunting at his teammates.

The joke here is that he’s neither eloquent or very well spoken, but could they also have been attempting to lessen the amount of words he needed to read off cue-cards by including the video at all? Who knows! The man has also made his way further into Hollywood with appearances in FX’s Grotesquerie and an upcoming role in the Happy Gilmore sequel, although literacy isn’t exactly what comes to mind when I think about Ryan Murphy or Adam Sandler vehicles.

Photo via Getty IMages