Donna Kelce Opens Up About Parenting NFL Stars With Ex-Husband Ed In Team Effort Through Marriage and Divorce

In an interview on The Martha Stewart Podcast, Donna Kelce shared insights into her marriage and parenting journey with her ex-husband, Ed, detailing how they raised their NFL star sons, Jason and Travis Kelce, before deciding to part ways. The couple, who were married for nearly 25 years, made a conscious decision to stay together while their sons were still in the house, a choice that Donna believes was crucial for their family’s stability.

Reflecting on the complexities of parenting, especially when it comes to nurturing ambitious children with dreams of athletic stardom, Donna highlighted the challenges they faced. It’s “very, very difficult to raise children on your own,” she told Martha Stewart, 82, during the episode. 

With both sons actively engaged in sports from a young age, Donna and Ed recognized the benefits of maintaining a united front. “And with as active as they were, how do you do that on your own? So we decided that we would be married throughout the entire time that the kids were in the house, and that’s the way it worked out,” Donna explained.

The strategic decision to remain married until Jason, 36, and Travis, 34, had graduated from the University of Cincinnati and moved out on their own proved to be a wise one. Martha commended their approach, acknowledging the difficulty of single parenting and recognizing the couple’s foresight in keeping the family together during crucial developmental years. 

Donna and Ed, who first met unexpectedly at a local bar when Donna was actually supposed to meet another man for a date, nurtured a partnership that effectively supported their sons’ burgeoning football careers. Despite the eventual dissolution of their marriage after the children left home, the couple continued to share a deep bond and mutual respect, something Donna emphasized during their appearance on the popular podcast New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce. “I don’t hate him. We’re friends to this day. We get along great,” she shared, underscoring the ongoing friendship and collaboration between the two.

In the 2023 Prime Video Sports documentary Kelce, both Donna and Ed discussed their decision to stay together, acknowledging that while they might have preferred to separate earlier, the logistical and emotional complexities of raising their sons in split households would have been significantly more challenging.

“If we had split as we probably both would have preferred, that would have been a nightmare with the logistics, getting kids where they had to be and providing all the support,” Ed explained in the documentary.