Travis Kelce bought Taylor Swift and his family a $1m Super Bowl suite, Shaquille O’Neal treated his mom to luxury purses and Georges St-Pierre cleared his parents’ debt. Before Hunter gave back to his mother, several athletes shared their abundance with their loved ones in more ways than one.
Here, DailyMail.com recounts how stars in different sports generously spent their earnings for their families.
Travis Kelce buys $1million Super Bowl suite in Vegas
While plenty wished to be at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas in February, Travis Kelce’s $1million suite was the place to be in the venue. As the Kansas City Chiefs took on the San Francisco 49ers for the coveted Lombardi trophy, the tight end spent seven figures to make sure his family and girlfriend, Taylor Swift, had the best seats in the house.
Sources told TMZ that Kelce paid for the pricey suite at Allegiant Stadium. When Super Bowl Sunday rolled around, his mom Donna, dad Ed, brother Jason, sister-in-law Kylie, Swift, and several A-listers enjoyed the fruits of his labor as he and the Chiefs secured their third title in five years.
‘I’m not really doing much different other than just counting how much money I’m spending on this damn Super Bowl for family and friends to come,’ Kelce said on the New Heights podcast ahead of the game. ‘Just making sure I’m on top of those finances and losing all this money.’
Celebrities such as Blake Lively, Ice Spice, Lana Del Rey, Quavo, Paul McCarthy, and Miles Teller all graced the star-filled suite as the Chiefs and 49ers played a dramatic game that’s destined for the storybooks.
Shaquille O’Neal buys his mother Louis Vuitton purses
Shaquille O’Neal said that his goal in life was to buy his mother Lucille ‘anything she wants’
Fans can thank Shaquille O’Neal’s mother, Lucille, for his dominance on the court. Dr. Shaq won four NBA titles and three finals MVPs over his Hall-of-Fame career. But despite winning all of the hardware and making roughly $292m in salary alone, O’Neal stated that his goal was to give back to his mother.
The NBA legend previously shared how his mother not being the biggest fan of designer accessories did not stop him from buying her not one but two Louis Vuitton purses on her birthday.
‘It was my mom’s birthday, and she don’t even like Louis purses,’ O’Neal told Patrick Bet-David in 2022. ‘I say ‘Come, let’s take a ride.’ And you know the bag [cost] two thousand. ‘No baby, don’t buy that.’ ‘Get two of them, Mom.’ That right there is what being wealthy and successful is to me.’
‘My sole dream was to be able to buy my mother anything she wants,’ O’Neal added. ‘Even to this day, that’s why I work hard. When I’m on that court, you can’t outplay me because if you are, you’re taking my mother’s house away. And I can’t have that. So I will damn near kill you before I let you take my mother’s house away.’ O’Neal, whose net worth is estimated to be around $500m has also bought his mother a house as he continues to fulfill his goal to pay her back for raising him.
Georges St-Pierre wipes away his parents’ debt
Widely considered the GOAT of MMA, Georges St-Pierre came a long way from his humble beginnings on the outskirts of Quebec. With a professional MMA record of 14-2, GSP won UFC interim gold in 2007 before knocking Matt Serra out for the undisputed welterweight title the following year.
St-Pierre inevitably started making more money as the face of Canadian MMA and one of the UFC’s biggest stars. Rather than spending money on himself, the former two-division champion cleared his parents’ debt with his first big paycheck.
‘The first thing I did was clear all my parents’ debt,’ St-Pierre told GQ in 2022. ‘My parents are the ones to support me since the beginning. They took care of me as a baby, so that was the first thing I did.’
St-Pierre added that hearing his mother crying on the phone while his father refused to take his financial assistance was ‘one of the best days of my life.’ He spent $50,000 to wipe his parents’ dues before buying them new vehicles.
‘They didn’t really want to have something from me, but I forced them,’ St-Pierre said. ‘Their car was broke [broken] all the time, so I bought them a new car.’ I wanted them to have a luxury car, but they really didn’t want it.’
The Canadian became a two-time UFC Welterweight Champion and won the middleweight crown from Michael Bisping in 2017 before leaving the sport with a 26-2 record. St-Pierre was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2020.
