Jason Kelce signs autographs during his celebrity bartending appearance at the Ocean Drive’s outdoor bar in 2022.
MARGATE - When you’re famous, it’s hard to be invisible. A girl can’t even have a quiet dinner with her hubby when he is an iconic superstar.
On the radio yesterday, Mayor Ernie Troiano of Wildwood said this: “It’s the mentality that, ‘I’ve got my camera, let’s create an incident, let’s be an influencer,” he said about youthful indiscretions that ruined it for others over the Memorial Day weekend.
Well, the same mentality has infiltrated the adult psyche in another Jersey shore resort town.
Someone posted a very brief video of two adult women pointing fingers in each other’s faces and arguing over what one of them believed was an intrusion on her privacy. The incident was brief but being famous made it “big news” worthy of being picked up by every questionable internet news source imaginable.
The New York Post, which publishes far from tony Margate, had the lengthiest story about the incident, detailing what they believe happened in a parking lot outside of an exclusive Downbeach eatery. Of course, the sources quoted were anonymous, which it typical of today’s internet based “journalism.”
Former Eagle center Jason Kelce and his wife Kylie are a married couple raising three young girls. Even though they are wealthy, they are hard working people and loved by many. They deserve to have a quiet date night every once in a while. What perfect place to do that than at Steve and Cookies By the Bay, which is owned by one of the most philanthropic women to ever operate a restaurant. The food alone is worth a monthslong wait for a reservation for most people. But when your name is Kelce, it’s likely that owner Cookie Till opened the back door so they could slip in quietly unnoticed.
When a woman, we don’t know if it was a restaurant patron or just a passer-by, allegedly asked the couple to take a selfie, Kylie Kelce “politely” declined and said they were just out for date night and to please respect their privacy. The rejection caused the requester to behave badly, just like the kids in Wildwood. Of course, in the Insta-age, someone nearby pulled out their cellphone and recorded a 7-second video that some “journalists” believe told the whole story.
In America today, the Kelce name generates clicks. Lots of them. The video, which really doesn’t tell the whole story, of course went viral, causing even legitimate news outlets to “pick up the story” and splash it on their websites to please advertisers who want to know how many clicks the source generates before they plop down any advertising dollars.
We know. We have a lot of readers – tens of thousands of them. We think they would click through too, but is that what the news industry is about? Or is it about telling peoples’ stories? We’re really busy doing that, so instead of posting that ridiculous video, we’ll be out in the community today, covering real news.
Oh, by the way, the mayor of Margate, Michael Collins, issued a statement Wednesday morning – where else but on the city’s social media page – apologizing to the Kelces and offering them a “redo date night with dinner on me.”
“On behalf of the City of Margate, I’d like to formally apologize to Jason & Kylie Kelce for the experience they had in Margate City over the holiday weekend. As a father with young children, I know as well as anyone the importance of a date night with your wife and would like to offer a redo date night with dinner on me.”We wonder how many clicks that got, and of course, where will they enjoy that dinner? We love Jason Kelce, and his partner in life even more. She’s the kind of woman we want our daughters to be. So, everyone out there on the internets, leave the Kelces alone. They just want to be themselves every once in a while. NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY [email protected]Margate City Mayor Michael Collins
