Travis Kelce's mother talks about the NFL star's “Grotesquerie” acting debut

At the New York premiere of Ryan Murphy's Halloween entry for FX, a gripping psychological crime thriller called “Grotesquerie” starring Niecy Nash-Betts and Courtney B. Vance, Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden needed only one sentence in her introduction before praising a certain Kansas City Chiefs football star.

“On behalf of everyone at Disney, I want to extend a warm welcome,” Walden said. “We are so excited about this show and — I don't know if you heard this or not — a very special person named Travis Kelce is making his acting debut on this show.”

Walden made a nod to Kelce's appearance at the premiere before instead greeting his emissary, his mother Donna Kelce. She stood and waved. Then came the introductions of the cast and production.

“Grotesquerie,” which also stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez of Murphy’s “Monsters” and Broadway’s Micaela Diamond, is a crime kaleidoscope in true Murphy style: brutal bloodshed, crippling social dysfunction, Catholicism, psychosexual perversion, a murderer on the loose, an inscrutable plot and one crucial ingredient – ​​irresistible celebrity.

In “Grotesquerie,” Kelce plays a charming – if not exactly pornographic – male nurse. As expected, he was the only topic of conversation on Monday night.

“I mean, it would be one thing if he wasn't a nice guy,” said Vance, who is also an executive producer of the show diversity. “But he's actually a nice guy.” According to Vance, Kelce's casting “just helps us. It helps everyone. Ryan is all about publicity and he does it better than anyone else.”

Murphy gave the audience at Spring Studios a brief recap of the show on Monday before showing the show's third episode, in which Kelce makes his first appearance.

“There's this crazy serial killer on the loose,” he began. “Niecy is a detective who doesn't have time for this anymore. She's an alcoholic who's constantly blacking out. Her husband, Courtney B. Vance, is in a Covid-induced coma and she doesn't want him to wake up. He's being cared for by Lesley Manville, who wants power of attorney so she can keep washing him. This is all very true,” he chided.

“Chaos erupts when Micaela Diamond shows up,” Murphy continued. “She's a true-crime obsessed nun who's researching this case for the local papers. Her boss, played by Nick, is an equally true-crime obsessed priest who also moonlights as a Peloton instructor. This show has it all.”

That Kelce is the focus of several episodes of Grotesquerie should come as no surprise to the average Murphy viewer. Fame is Murphy's muse, and fame is more often his subject. Fame – and the kind of fearsome fan base that surrounds Kelce and Taylor Swift – are tools that can be used.

“Television moves in weekly increments. Our little bites are psychologically like a series of appetizers. And that's how television can sustain guest traffic,” summed up co-creator Jon Robin Baitz, who signed a five-year deal with 20th Television after serving as a writer and showrunner on Murphy's “Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans.”

“Ryan and I talked a lot about the state of being in the world while filming 'Feud,'” Baitz said. diversity about the creation of the show. “We just wanted to write something on a whim. It was about the zeitgeist, about how dark the zeitgeist was. Terror in the post-pandemic world. Ideas about the disintegration of society. We just made a collage out of it.”

That sums it up: Like everything Murphy does, Grotesquerie is just a reflection of ourselves. Murphy uses fame and celebrity like the Romans used bread and circuses. If Murphy presents Kelce as a sexy hospital worker this fall, we'll have earned it.

“That was Ryan's business, and, well,” Baiz trailed off, “Travis Kelce's mother is right behind me.”

For mom Kelce – who continued her internet fame on Monday by littering the red carpet with answers to questions about Taylor Swift – her son's appearance in a Murphy series doesn't come as too much of a surprise.

“I know he wanted to do this, and I know he can manifest things,” she said diversity“He’s not afraid to try things and he’s not afraid to fail.”

Kelce said she prepared to watch the show for the first time that night – and gave her son some advice.

“You know, sometimes parents want to fix things for their children,” she said diversity“But sometimes it's better to just let them fail. You learn the most from things you don't do well. If that's something he wants to do, hopefully he'll get better at it.”

(Pictured: Courtney B. Vance, Niecy Nash-Betts and Donna Kelce)