Fact Check: Debunking claims Travis Kelce bought tiny diner from college days to feed homeless people
Claim:
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce bought a tiny diner that let him eat on credit during his college days, converting the eatery to feed 120 homeless people every day.
Rating:
A rumor that circulated online in June 2025 claimed Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, also known for dating 14-time Grammy Award winner Taylor Swift, bought a tiny diner that let him eat on credit during his college days. According to the story, Kelce turned the diner into an establishment that feeds 120 homeless people every day.
For example, on June 11, a Threads user posted (archived) in part, "Travis Kelce bought the tiny diner that let him eat on credit in college — but what he turned it into now feeds 120 homeless people every day."
(@robert_dimiceli32506595/Threads)
Facebook users also shared this rumor, including some with the following caption:
Travis Kelce bought the tiny diner that let him eat on credit in college — but what he turned it into now feeds 120 homeless people every day…
Back in college, Travis used to eat at Elena's diner — a kind Mexican woman who let him run a tab for two years. Fifteen years later, he tracked her down, found out she was closing the diner, and quietly bought it. But instead of reopening for business, he asked Elena to cook again — this time, serving free lunch to 120 people on the streets nearby…
Those Facebook posts featured links in top comments to articles hosted by WordPress blogs, such as one advertisement-filled story hosted on the News75today.com website. The article identified the supposed former diner as Elena's Diner in Kansas City, Missouri, and the newer Kelce establishment as Elena's Kitchen.
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting any news of Kelce purchasing a diner or organizing daily meals for homeless people. Entertainment and sports blogs would have widely reported this rumor — if true — due to his prominent NFL status and relationship with Swift. Also, searches produced no results for any establishments in Kansas City with the names Elena's Diner or Elena's Kitchen.
Rather, this rumor about Kelce simply existed as the latest inspirational story fabricated by users to earn advertising revenue on websites linked from the aforementioned Facebook posts. The story about Kelce resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as "stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental."
The AI image detector Sightengine found that a user managing AI software likely produced the photos of Kelce serving food to homeless people with a 99.9% likelihood. Both pictures showed clear signs of AI fakery, such as Kelce's eyes displaying odd discrepancies. The man Kelce served food to in the top photo had a very strangely-generated hand. A partial bowl, which made no sense, sat on top of the plate Kelce handed the same man. Further, in both photos, none of the food appeared identifiable.
While the aforementioned lookups of search engines found no credible trace of this story, those searches did locate another made-up story claiming Kelce helped a diner from his teenage years, as opposed to during college. The headline of the similar fabricated story, also hosted on News75today.com, read, "Travis Kelce donated $50,000 to the diner that once fed him as a hungry teen — and the way he returned brought the owner to tears."
For further reading, another Snopes fact check examined a rumor claiming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reconnected with and organized a fundraiser for her old high school's elderly janitor.
"AI Image Detector. Detect AI-Generated Media at Scale." Sightengine, https://sightengine.com/detect-ai-generated-images.
"Taylor Swift | Artist | GRAMMY.com." Grammy.com, https://grammy.com/artists/taylor-swift/15450.
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