When a podcast hosted by Kylie Kelce, a 32-year-old high school field hockey coach, unseated “The Joe Rogan Experience” as the top-ranked show in the United States this month, strong reactions followed.
There was ire and dismissal, including from Mr. Rogan’s most dedicated listeners. There was admiration and glee, both from fans of Ms. Kelce and detractors of Mr. Rogan.
But there was also some confusion: Kylie Kelce who?
“Which is very funny to me — I don’t need you to know who I am,” Ms. Kelce said in a rare interview at her home studio outside Philadelphia. In fact, she said, she prefers when people don’t.
Of course, some of her family members are household names. There is her husband, Jason Kelce, former center for the Philadelphia Eagles, soon-to-be late-night host and one of the most charismatic stars in American sports. They are expecting their fourth daughter in April.
And there is her brother-in-law, Travis Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs who has been dating the world’s biggest pop star. The brothers have their own hit video podcast, “New Heights,” which Amazon’s Wondery bought the advertising sales and distribution rights to in August for more than $100 million.
But until now, Kylie Kelce has stayed mostly out of view, appearing only twice on “New Heights.” (Her first appearance, in 2023, remains the show’s most-viewed episode.) To listeners of her new show, “Not Gonna Lie With Kylie Kelce,” that is part of her appeal: In a world of people clawing their way into the spotlight, Ms. Kelce was dragged into fame, as she describes it.
Her success may also reflect shifting desires among listeners. With the exception of true crime and Alex Cooper, the top spots on the podcasting charts of Spotify and Apple are dominated by comedy, news and talk shows hosted by men. Ms. Kelce primarily discusses “mom stuff,” as she puts it, often laced with four-letter words. She also talks about women in sports — as fans, athletes and wives of athletes.
“She’s tapping into a very big audience,” said Michaela Hammond, chief executive and co-founder of OffBall, a sports and culture media company. “People who care about sports, but care about sports in a much more conversational, water-cooler type of way.”
In the interview, her first since the podcast was announced in November, Ms. Kelce attributed the show’s resonance to her honesty — like her headline-grabbing admission that her husband does not watch their children. “Maybe it’s the promise that you’re not going to get lied to,” she said.
Ms. Kelce is not the first podcaster to elbow past Mr. Rogan on the charts. “New Heights,” for example, reached No. 1 on Spotify in January. But it held that position for two days, and did not draw headlines like Ms. Kelce’s show did.
Two weeks after its debut episode, “Not Gonna Lie” is still ranked No. 1 on Apple Podcasts. After holding the top spot on Spotify for 10 consecutive days, Ms. Kelce is now fluctuating between first and second place with Mr. Rogan.
Besides their tendency toward bluntness and cursing, Ms. Kelce has little in common with Mr. Rogan. Her episodes do not exceed 45 minutes, she said, a gesture toward “prioritizing the timeline of busy women.” (Mr. Rogan’s episodes typically exceed two or three hours; “New Heights” exceeds one hour or 90 minutes.)
Ms. Kelce is also not interested in discussing Mr. Rogan. She avoids referring to him by name. “I couldn’t care less about the charts,” she said after arriving for her photo shoot with a piece of a bagel wedged into her cheek.
But the “triggered” fans of the show she has toppled, even temporarily? Or the sports radio hosts who’ve mocked her podcast or expressed skepticism over her numbers? She seems to relish in their annoyance: “That’s getting me going.”
“I’m focused on putting out content that people like to consume,” Ms. Kelce later added, sitting on a couch stained with marker streaks from her children. “If that puts us there for a week, cool. If it puts us there for longer than that, cool. But I also don’t need to feed any conflict that’s created by it.”
In the big picture, Mr. Rogan still has far more reach. Spotify’s chart placement, for example, is determined by a combination of recent unique listeners and overall follower counts. And when it comes to overall followers, Mr. Rogan has 16.3 million on the platform. Ms. Kelce has 172,000.
Still, in its first week, “Not Gonna Lie” accumulated a combined 25 million audio downloads and social media views, according to Wave Sports + Entertainment, the company behind Ms. Kelce’s show, making it Wave’s most successful launch.
Wave also helped create podcasts from the basketball players Carmelo Anthony and Paul George — and “New Heights,” which the company still produces, despite the deal with Wondery. (While Wondery reportedly has the right of first refusal for new shows from the Kelce brothers, that claim did not extend to Ms. Kelce.)
With Ms. Kelce’s show, “we don’t have a sport to hang on,” said Tunde St. Matthew-Daniel, executive vice president of original content at Wave. “What we can hang on is relatability.”
That relatability is complicated. Ms. Kelce has been a V.I.P. at Milan Fashion Week and WrestleMania, two events that she has described as having “no business” attending. Almost anything she says publicly becomes an instant headline, particularly if it has any connection — real or imagined — to her brother-in-law’s girlfriend, Taylor Swift.
Ms. Kelce started the podcast in part because she wanted a space to “set the record straight” about her family when needed, she said.
But there are still fragments of relatability: an unapologetically messy house, an unpretentious wardrobe, a fall coaching job at the same public high school she attended, daughters she also plans to send to public school.
“I assume this isn’t always going to be our life, and I don’t want them to be impacted in some way that twists them into thinking that this is normal,” she said.
If her life were normal during the election, she might have felt safe sharing her political views, which it turns out “aggressively lean” left, she said.
Instead, some people online speculated her family was “MAGA.” Others assumed she was aligned with Ms. Swift, who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. One day a honking caravan of cars with Trump flags and signs “slow-rolled past our house,” Ms. Kelce said. “To me, that was like, ‘We know where you live.’” (The Kelces do not live in a remote, gated community. A longtime employee said it was not unusual to see strangers doing “slow-rolls,” or to walk out of the house and hear a passer-by yell, “Go, Birds!”)
When asked if politicians would be welcome on “Not Gonna Lie” — as they were on “Call Her Daddy” and “The Joe Rogan Experience” in October — Ms. Kelce did not hesitate.
“I would talk to Michelle Obama in a heartbeat, and I know she is not personally running,” she said. “But I would love it if she would.” She also expressed interest in interviewing Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, whom she said she admired for putting free period products in school bathrooms.
If she is aware the revelation of her Democratic politics might cause a stir with fans or the internet at large, Ms. Kelce does not seem to mind.
“I mean this in the most respectful way,” she said. “I don’t care what other people have to say.”
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