Owning her mistakes. Matthew Stafford may be the one in the spotlight, but his wife, Kelly Stafford (née Hall), has found herself in hot water on more than one occasion.
Matthew, the current quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams, met Kelly when they were attending the University of Georgia. She’s been candid about the fact that their relationship was rocky as they navigated young love.
“Our college relationship was the typical college, I would say, relationship — where there wasn’t really one because he didn’t want one,” the former Dawgs cheerleader said on KFC Radio in February 2022. “We went back and forth there for a little bit with a love-hate. … We were all over the place. I dated the backup [quarterback] to piss him off. That was the type of situation we were in. … He deserved it!”
Things got more serious post-college, with Matthew signing with the Detroit Lions, the team he played with for 12 seasons. The twosome exchanged vows in 2015 and went on to welcome four daughters: Sawyer, Chandler, Hunter and Tyler.
During Matthew’s tenure in Michigan, Kelly made headlines when she put tickets to a game on StubHub.
“Just an FYI: I bought those New Orleans tickets to take my family to the game, but found out at the beginning of this week my grandfather is very ill so I am going home to see him instead,” she wrote via Instagram in 2015. “I’m also sorry for being HUMAN and wanting to sell the tickets we purchased because we are not able to go. We do a lot for this community and I’m beyond tired of getting badgered for this … get over yourselves.”
The following year, however, the couple were praised for giving away free tickets to first responders in Detroit. During Matthew’s first season with the Rams, Kelly made a public plea for L.A. fans not to sell their NFC championship tickets to 49ers supporters, buying a reported $250,000 worth of tickets to give away.
“I have never seen so many of the opposing team’s fans at a game,” she said on her “The Morning After with Kelly Stafford” podcast in 2022. “And we came from Detroit, and there are a lot of good traveling teams there, but that was wild … It was crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that, but it made it very hard for us.”
While the duo had a lot to celebrate after the Rams won Super Bowl LVI, a video of Matthew seemingly walking away from an injured photographer after she fell off a platform at the February 2022 parade subsequently went viral.
“We have been in communication with Kelly Smiley since yesterday’s incident and we are sorry for what happened,” the couple and the Rams said in a joint statement at the time, noting they would cover her medical bills.
Scroll through for a breakdown of the controversial moments:
