Mike Vrabel and his wife Jen are among the surprise invitees to the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding, where the couple appears to be reunited following accusations of infidelity against the embattled New England Patriots head coach.
Vrabel was spotted with his partner of 27 years ahead of Friday’s ceremony in midtown Manhattan. The 50-year-old was wearing a black suit and tie while Jen, his college sweetheart from his days at Ohio State, was in an aqua blue chiffon gown with intricate in-built cape detailing.
And unlike Kelce, who usually makes a production of holding doors for Swift, Vrabel let hotel staff handle those duties while he entered the chauffeured SUV ahead of Jen, as seen in a clip published by The New York Post.
Some fans were critical of Vrabel’s apparent faux pas, but others defended him, claiming he made it easier for Jen to exit the vehicle upon their arrival at the venue, Madison Square Garden.
‘The idiots getting on Vrabel for going in first don’t realize it’s easier for his wife to then get out with a dress and heels,’ one fan wrote on X in defense of the Patriots coach.
This marked the first time the two had been seen together in public since the reigning NFL Coach of the Year faced accusations of an affair with reporter Dianna Russini.
Mike Vrabel and his wife Jen are pictured in 2025 when he was named Patriots head coach
Russini (right) has denied any wrongdoing and is standing by her reporting, while Vrabel (left) has stopped short of admitting to an affair, but did say he let down his family and the team
Jen Vrabel is pictured next to her college sweetheart, the former Ohio State linebacker
The controversy erupted in March when the New York Post published suggestive photos of Vrabel fraternizing with Russini at a $2,500-a-night, adults-only retreat in Arizona.
While the married Russini has denied any wrongdoing and stood by her reporting on Vrabel, she was later placed on leave at The Athletic before ultimately submitting her resignation to the website’s parent company, The New York Times.
In April, the Post published pictures purportedly showing Vrabel and Russini kissing at a bar in Manhattan in March of 2020. Russini married Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt in September of that year and has since given birth to his two sons.
The Daily Mail also published photos of Vrabel and a pregnant Russini renting a boat on a Tennessee lake in 2021, when he was coaching the Titans and she was reporting on the team for ESPN.
Speaking before the first round of April’s NFL Draft, Vrabel stopped short of confessing to an affair. However, he did admit to causing ‘a distraction to the people that I care most about, my family, this football team, the organization and our fans.’
He would ultimately miss the third day of the draft to attend a family counseling session.
Vrabel’s ties to Kelce aren’t obvious, outside of the fact they both make a living in the NFL.
Although he retired as a player in Kansas City in 2010, Vrabel was out the door several years before Kelce’s arrival in 2013. Since then, Vrabel has coached against Kelce, both with the Patriots and during a previous stint with the Tennessee Titans.
Earlier on Friday, the New York Post published photos of the couple arriving at Manhattan’s Langham Hotel, where he was seen holding Nordstrom shopping bags. Jen, meanwhile, was seen grinning as she exited the chauffeured SUV.
