While appearing on a parents episode of the Kelce brothers’ podcast, “New Heights,” Feb. 6 prior to the 2023 Super Bowl, Donna Kelce, née Blalock, said that she grew up in inner city Cleveland in a “small house” with her grandparents living upstairs.

After moving to the suburbs in fourth grade, the mom of two said her own mother was “very ill” and passed away when she was 12 and her brother was 10. Following her biological mother’s death, Donna Kelce said her dad married a “wonderful human being” named Mary.

“(Mary) raised Don and I,” Donna Kelce said, referring to her brother. “And, by the grace of God, if we didn’t have her, I don’t think we would have made it through.”

Mary motivated Donna Kelce to go to college, despite the reluctance of her father, who wanted her to attend secretarial school. After earning a degree in broadcast communications from Ohio University, Donna Kelce became the first person in her family to graduate from college.

But Donna Kelce chose not to pursue a career in communications. She went back to school for her masters and ended up in banking.