Julian Edelman shaves off beard on Ellen for charity

Ellen Degeneres shaved off Julian Edelman’s playoff beard on “Ellen,” before both of them donated $10,000 each to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston.

Super Bowl 53 MVP Julian Edelman found himself in a bit of hairy situation during his appearance on the daytime TV talk show “Ellen.” Whether he knew ahead of time or not is unclear, but without warning, host Ellen Degeneres steered their interview conversation to his beard.

After Edelman explained that he specifically decided to grow the beard out for as long as the Patriots were in the playoffs, Degeneres asked him then if he planned on shaving it.

“I don’t know. I’m just kind of feeling it out; we’ll see,” Edelman responded. It was all the opening Degeneres needed to move forward with her plan.

“I know that you support the Boys & Girls Club of America,” Degeneres began. “I thought it would probably mean a lot if I would donate $10,000 to them, but you need to let me shave that beard first. I have a chair, I have a razor… why not let me do it?”

Edelman, ever the good sport, not only agreed to the shave right then and there at a makeshift barbershop set piece in studio, but also suggested that he would match another $10,000 donation personally.

The segment aired on TV just a day after Patriots quarterback Tom Brady got a shave of his own at Gillette’s Boston headquarters on Thursday. Brady’s shave was also part of a charity effort – Gillette reportedly donated $35,000 each to the Boys & Girls Club of South Boston, Best Buddies, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute organizations.

While Brady’s playoff “beard” was more stubble and five o’ clock shadow than the bushy creature living on Edelman’s face for the past couple months, it’s wonderful to see two professional athletes taking time out of their Super Bowl celebrations to do something proactive for local charities.