How Kelly Stafford’s Brain Surgery ‘Helped’ Marriage to Matt Stafford

Kelly Stafford’s brain tumor diagnosis brought her and husband Matt Stafford closer as a couple.

“Matthew, kind of, took [charge] of the doctors and stuff, and finding the best out there to see our options,” Kelly, 46, said on the Wednesday, December 4, episode of the “Absolutely Not” podcast. “That’s tough because I don’t like options. It was also either watch it grow and see if I could handle it, radiate it and see if it would shrink or take it out.”

Kelly was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2019, telling podcast host Heather McMahan that she “can’t live with something that’s not supposed to be there.”

“Immediately, I was like, ‘Take it out,’ and Matthew was kind of against it,” she recalled on Wednesday. “He was like, ‘It’s a huge risk.’ There were risks going into it with my hearing and my facial nerves and balance, but he did an incredible job during that whole thing. I don’t think I would have gotten through it without him.”

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Kelly ultimately underwent a 12-hour procedure to remove the tumor, and it was successful.

“I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit up,” she recalled, noting the tumor had been sitting on her balance nerve. “Matthew said when he came in the first night, ‘[Our 6-month-old] Hunter could sit up way better than I could.’ I was tossing and turning and falling off the bed. Re-learning walking took a long time. I couldn’t have my kids around.”

Kelly and the Rams star, who met in college and got married in 2015, share twins Sawyer and Chandler, 6, Hunter, now 4, and Tyler, 2.

“It was tough,” Kelly recalled. “But, I always say, it helped my marriage. It helped, just like, our family unit in a way. I’m grateful for it … and it’s because there was a good outcome. Luckily for me, it was good.”

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At the time, Kelly and Matt, 36, were living in Michigan amid his tenure with the Detroit Lions. They moved to Los Angeles two years later when the quarterback was traded to the Los Angeles Rams.

“There’s a lot to do in Los Angeles, like, people are supporting [us],” Kelly previously gushed during a September episode of the “Morning After” podcast. “We’re gonna stay here when [Matt retires], we love it here; our kids love it here. We’ve immersed ourselves in the community that’s around us, which has been amazing.”