Travis Kelce has been diversifying his professional portfolio as of late—the Kansas City Chiefs tight end is now hosting a reboot of the popular game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? for Amazon Prime Video (his version will be called Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?), is producing documentaries (like one about Jean-Michel Basquiat called King Pleasure), co-hosting a podcast, “New Heights,” with his brother Jason, and, now, has taken on his first major acting role—in a Ryan Murphy-produced horror series, to boot.
The Hollywood Reporter confirms Kelce’s casting in Grotesquerie, a forthcoming show co-starring Niecy Nash-Betts and Courtney B. Vance on FX. Nash-Betts confirmed Kelce’s involvement in the show in an Instagram video posted yesterday, although details remain scant and no details have been revealed about what role Kelce specifically will be playing. We do, however, have this teaser Murphy dropped back in February, featuring Nash-Betts’ voice “sounding very disturbed about a crime scene,” The Hollywood Reporter writes.
In Nash-Betts’ clip on social media, Kelce appears in a white shirt, wearing a big smile and revealing he’s “jumping into new territory.” Thankfully, he’s in good hands—Murphy is no stranger to the horror genre, having created the American Horror Story franchise. A former reality star (hello Catching Kelce!), Kelce continues to dip his toe into scripted projects, like hosting Saturday Night Live or producing the indie film My Dead Friend Zoe, which premiered at SXSW in March. But this does, indeed, mark new territory for one-half of the most famous couple in the world (Kelce dates some singer-songwriter you may have heard of named Taylor Swift).
Kelce showed his excitement by reposting Nash-Betts’ video via his Instagram Story and adding the caption “Steppin into a new world with one of the legends!” tagging Nash-Betts in the process.
According to Deadline, Grotesquerie is slated for a fall premiere—just in time for Kelce to return to the field as (yet again) a defending Super Bowl champion with the Chiefs.
“I like to have exciting things going on,” Kelce told People. “And sure enough, I’m out here in the entertainment world trying to dabble into that before I get back locked in on football and knowing that that’s going to be my focus until I’m done playing.” He added, “But to dabble around in the entertainment space is something that I’m really interested in.”
