Stephen A. Smith Piledrives Jason Whitlock In 45-Minute Rant
Stephen A. Smith is known for his entertaining rants, but this week’s diatribe was no laughing matter. The First Take host dedicated 45 minutes of his eponymous show to sharing his true feelings about fellow sports analyst Jason Whitlock.
The Fearless With Jason Whitlock host spent a large portion of Tuesday (Jan. 9) and Wednesday (Jan. 10) tweeting about the ESPN employee and also mentioned him on his show. He questioned whether Smith wrote his January 2023 book Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes, and made comments about his basketball career and him as a person. “Stephen A Smith is always embarrassingly wrong, bombastic, and stupid,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He’s quick to play the race card and does virtually anything for popularity.”
Smith retorted by dropping a teaser of his upcoming episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show, where he reiterates that he has intentionally not said Whitlock’s name over the last almost ten years, but enough became enough. He even revealed that he apologized to his pastor in advance along with warning employers at ESPN and his family about what he was about to say.
“Did you tell them that once the same article in Deadspin came out, weeks later, you wrote a lengthy apology to me in an email, begging me to forgive you, pointing out how you were betrayed by this particular writer, so you know how I must feel that you betrayed me?” Stephen A. Smith asked about a 2015 article detailing how several ESPN employees, him included, did not want to work with Jason Whitlock. “Did you tell the folks that, you bi**h? Did you tell ’em, you fat piece of sh*t?”
Smith’s disdain for Whitlock was so deep that he had a specific clause in his contract where they would never have to work together. “I don’t know of anyone who has this in their contracts,” he said. “I had it in my contract, and I have a copy of it, where it specifically stipulates that I never work with Jason Whitlock. It’s in writing. No wonder you didn’t see him on First Take.”
Whitlock has been known for being a conservative and pushing harmful agendas such as Michelle Obama being trans, comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan, and even disparaging women’s right to vote. It is no surprise that Smith said he is “worse than a white supremacist.”
“I mean it from my soul when I say this is the worst human being I’ve ever known,” Stephen A. Smith said. “He’s the dude that’s gonna have a funeral and ain’t gonna be no pallbearers. Might be two people that show up […] There is nothing good about him. Absolutely nothing. And I challenge anybody that knows anything about him to refute what I’m saying. I have the facts. They’re all here. I know what he’s done.” Check out the full rant above.
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