Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman went on 'Ellen' and she shaved his beard for charity
New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman let his beard grow full and gnarly during the football season, but with the year done the Super Bowl LIII MVP was persuaded into taking it off — for a good cause.
‘Ellen’ appearance
Edelman taped an interview with Ellen Degeneres on “The Ellen Show” that aired on Friday. She of course brought up his beard and how long he planned to keep it. Edelman said he wasn’t sure — the king of T-shirts, Edelman has been selling ones with “MVP” carved into into his beard on his website — and that he was “feeling it out.”
“It’s grown on me,” he joked.
Degeneres made Edelman an offer: I’ll donate $10,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston if you let me shave the beard right now.
Edelman took her up on the offer, and said he’d match the $10,000.
Through the miracle of television, there was already a barber’s chair, cape with the Patriots’ logo and clippers waiting to be rolled out in front of the audience.
‘I love you, beard’
As Degeneres raises the clippers toward his face (after comically making her hand shake), Edelman said, “Wait, wait.”
She asked if he wanted to say goodbye to his facial hair, and Edelman said, “I love you, beard. It’s been a hell of a year.”
Once Degeneres was done, Edelman looked quite different, and the crowd screamed its appreciation.
‘This was for my other team, my family’
Before the big shave, Edelman said that winning the Super Bowl — he brought the gleaming Lombardi Trophy with him — is what’s most important, but the MVP recognition gave him something personally as well.
“Getting the MVP is kind of a win for me and my other team, and that’s my family. Getting to experience this with them, because they’ve been in my corner, they’ve kind of made me who I am,” he said, mentioning his parents, Frank and Angela. “My father was a tough, hard-nosed guy and pushed me to limits I never thought I could get to. And my mother, being the loving little lady that she is, I was never late to a practice, she was always there. … I mean, I had a bag lunch until junior college. She took care of me for a long time. So this is like a full-family kind of win.”
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