Why Fans Can't Stand Kelly Stafford

Kelly Stafford has been married to NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford since 2015 and hasn't just been sitting on the sidelines — she's made plenty of her own headlines. She has a podcast called "The Morning After," which landed her in hot water with fans after comments about her husband's teammates in August. As the Rams roster turned over with an influx of young talent, Kelly spoke about how the veteran quarterback struggled with the personnel changes. "But, he's like, 'I feel like I can't connect.' Because in the old days, you'd come out of practice, you'd shower, people would be playing cards, people would be interacting," Kelly said on "The Morning After," while adding that the young players spend all their time on their phones. Kelly's comments did not sit well with fans.

Days later, Kelly appeared on Local 4 Detroit and apologized for how she depicted Matthew's interactions with teammates, calling it "probably the worst thing I've done when it comes to him." The podcaster owned up to her mistake. "I put my foot in my mouth pretty good last week," she told the news outlet.

As backlash circulated from Kelly's podcast comments, Matthew was forced to address the issue with the press. "Nobody in the locker room's too worried about it, I can promise you that. We've completely moved on," he told ESPN in September. The team may have forgotten, but that was not the first time Kelly upset NFL fans.

Kelly Stafford had an altercation with a fan at one of Matthew Stafford's games in November 2021. The fan was trash-talking Kelly and her husband as she watched the game, and apparently, some of his choice words hit a soft spot. Kelly lost her temper and threw a soft pretzel at the spectator. Security intervened, and "The Morning After" podcaster was moved to another seat before the altercation escalated.

Afterward, Kelly addressed the incident in the comment section of an Instagram post. "I'm an idiot," she wrote. "He was saying a bunch of things that were aggressive towards our crew but zero excuse." According to Kelly, it was a reaction to the spectator making uncouth comments about her husband. "Sorry you had to witness me in my weak moment!" she added in the lengthy Instagram response.

When word of Kelly's "pretzel gate" apology spread on X, formerly known as Twitter, some fans were supportive — while others compared her to another maligned NFL quarterback wife. "The Internet: Brittany Matthews is the worst. Kelly Stafford: hold my pretzel," one fan quipped. Later that season, when Matthew and the Los Angeles Rams went head-to-head in the Super Bowl, fans still recalled the pretzel-throwing encounter. "Trying to find the prop bet on if Kelly Stafford throws a hot pretzel at a fan," one X user wrote. More controversy surrounding Kelly surfaced after the Rams won that Super Bowl.

After the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl in 2022, they were given their Super Bowl rings later that year in July. That same week, Matthew Stafford joined Instagram. In his first post, the quarterback uploaded a snap of himself with the new eye-catching ring. "She's a real beauty," he wrote in the caption. Kelly Stafford stood beside her husband in the shot, but she was mostly cropped out of the photo.

That caused Kelly to fire back with a response by uploading another version of the same photo. "The Morning After" host posted the picture, but this time, only Kelly was visible in a revealing red suit jacket alongside the Super Bowl ring. "We look good together @matthewstafford [ring emoji]," she wrote in the caption. The photo of Kelly in the fiery outfit had fans buzzing.

Leading up to the Super Bowl ring ceremony, Kelly gave fans a sneak peek of her bright red pantsuit on the Instagram account for her podcast. She also took a shot at her trolls in the captions. "I get so many DMs telling me I need to dress more feminine ... so, I wore a suit," she wrote in the caption alongside two photos of her outfit. Later that year, a fan criticized Kelly's dress style, leading to a heated exchange.

Kelly Stafford has never been one to shy away from confronting instigators. In December 2022, one online troll criticized how she presented herself publicly and how that related to her marriage to Matthew Stafford. "He [Matthew] could have his pick of women so just a little bit of makeup. If you weren't married you'd have it on," the belligerent fan wrote on Instagram. This prompted a short but curt response from Kelly. "A typical misogynistic pig. Happy holidays!" she replied.

Days later, Kelly took to Instagram to again apologize for her behavior toward a fan. "I resorted to name calling which I truly do not like," she wrote in an Instagram story. "So I apologize to [the user]."

A series of fans took to X to support Kelly and believed she was not in the wrong for her strongly-worded reply. "Doesn't sound like she needs to apologize for S*** if you ask me haha," one person wrote. However, some other X users lacked compassion for the wife of the Los Angeles Rams quarterback. "His wife is a terrible person it seems [shrug emoji] she's been on news before being a Terrible person! Cancel her twitter!" an impassioned fan wrote.

One of Kelly Stafford's earliest scuffles with fans happened in 2015 when Matthew Stafford was still with the Detroit Lions. Kelly sold tickets to a Lions game against the Saints at the time, posting on Instagram that she had five tickets she was looking to transfer to a fan. The reaction from fans was unpleasant, to say the least, with many questioning her for her decision to sell the tickets. "When your husband makes 20 mill a year, and you need to raise 1500 bucks, the struggle is real! #heartless and it's Christmas," one fan wrote, with another commenting: "greedy little football wife."

To appease fuming football fans, Kelly shared another post explaining why she had to let go of the tickets. As it turns out, they were not players' tickets but resale tickets she bought with her own money and were initially intended for some of her family members. However, she had to change her plans due to her sick grandfather. "For those of you who said I'm not. going because of the season we have had... There is the real reason for you, I hope you're happy," she wrote. "I'm also sorry for being HUMAN and wanting to sell the tickets we purchased because we are not able to go." She also clarified that she did not make money despite what fans had initially insinuated.

It's not only with fans that Kelly Stafford had a bone to pick. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when most businesses were closed, Kelly took to social media to share a lengthy rant, finding Michigan's restrictions severely prohibitive. The former cheerleader even went as far as to call the state "a dictatorship," drawing ire from everyone. "So I'm going to be very blunt: I'm so over it. I'm over living in a dictatorship that we call Michigan," she declared. "Shutting down all these small businesses — things that people have worked their life for — shutting them down again is not the answer because they will not make it." She emphasized it was her opinion and expressed exasperation over the tightened rules. "I do not feel like — I do not like living in a place where they tell me what I can and cannot do."

It didn't take long until fans called her out for her comments, and predictably, Kelly issued an apology, claiming that her feelings got the best of her. "After I read some of your things and I get grounded a little bit, I'm really sorry. I was in the heat of the moment," she penned. "So I apologize for calling it a dictatorship. Probably the not so smart use of words. But yeah, I just want it to work for everybody, and I know it's not going to work for everybody."