The winning $100,000 bid to nab a Princess Diana Eagles jacket was made by the husband-and-wife stars of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” but it won’t be Rob McElhenney sporting the kelly green garment autographed by Kylie Kelce. The jacket will be worn by Kaitlin Olson, who secretly helped drive up the final price in the charity auction, which closed on Black Friday.
McElhenney and Olson appeared Wednesday on the “New Heights” podcast with brothers Jason and Travis Kelce to talk about their intense household bidding war for the coat. Princess Diana famously wore the original version of the jacket on the cover of People magazine in 1994; replicas made by Mitchell & Ness went on sale to the public for $400 earlier this month, selling out almost immediately. The Kylie Kelce-signed jacket was one of several items up for auction to benefit the Eagles Autism Foundation.
On Wednesday’s podcast, McElhenney initially appeared alone. He explained that he had placed bids of $10,000, $25,000 and $35,000 for the jacket because he’s passionate about supporting the charity. But when he was outbid each time, he realized the competition was “getting serious.”
“I put $35,000 in — somebody goes in immediately and puts in for ($50,000),” McElhenney said. “I’m thinking it’s (Eagles owner) Jeffrey Lurie, who caught wind of this and was like, ‘I’m just going to drive this price up as much as I can.’ And I was all in for it. I was like, great — again, this is a cause I believe in, let’s go for it.”
At one point during the bidding, the auction site appeared to crash, Jason said.
“They were having issues because I was smashing the button as hard as I could, because I couldn’t believe that somebody was immediately jumping on every time I bid,” McElhenney said.
When he placed a $62,000 bid in honor of Kelce’s No. 62, McElhenney thought for sure he’d get the jacket. On X, formerly Twitter, McElhenney warned the mystery “jabroni” bidding against him that he would prevail.
“Then I got a text from somebody I know saying, ‘I’ve been the one bidding against you, bozo,'” McElhenney said. “And it did not even cross my mind that this was a possibility, and it turned out that I live with this person.”
That’s when Olson joined the podcast and called out how oblivious McElhenney had been.
“This moron … we live in the same house,” Olson said. “This is a foundation that’s important to both of us. The jacket looks great on your wife. It’s clearly for women. I want it. He mentions nothing about it. I’m like, ‘What are you doing?'”
The couple said they ultimately agreed to jointly bid $100,000 for the jacket.
“We felt like an even $100,000 as a donation felt like a good number,” McElhenney said.
“I win, basically,” Olson added. “I won the jacket, for sure. He will not be wearing the jacket, ever.”
McElhenney, who also co-owns the Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC, said the Eagles Autism Foundation’s mission aligns with his and Olson’s philanthropic goals. In July, the actor said he had been diagnosed with “neurodevelopmental disorders and learning disabilities.” He made an effort to raise awareness of these issues in the second season of his FXX series “Welcome to Wrexham,” which chronicles his ownership of the club with actor Ryan Reynolds.
“We just truly believe in this organization, and it’s actually something that we really leaned into at Wrexham as well,” McElhenney said. “In fact, we’ve done a few episodes of the documentary about a lot of the work we’ve been doing with the autistic community and actually spanning the whole spectrum of all sorts of different neurodiversion disorders.”
The Eagles Autism Foundation raises money for innovative autism research and care programs. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie’s connection to autism is rooted in his brother Peter’s diagnosis. The team holds an annual Eagles Autism Challenge to raise money for the foundation’s initiatives.