Stephen A. Smith Speaks On His Father, First Take, Ayesha Curry, Rihanna Comments + More

again I was proven to be correct. I mentioned you on on on, get up the other morning. It's ridiculous, man, these these Dallas cowboy fans and like cockroaches everywhere. I told them, I said, just be patient, eybody. They was winning games. Everybody's the signed. I said, just be patient, it's coming. And sure enough, when the lights got brightest, wow, you'll be happy to though I had no expectations for the playoffs, They'll tell you I had none. After thought

they were gonna lose the temple. Okay, well, you do understand you're an anomaly. You never I'm most cowboy friends. That's what you have to do. You have to do because they're gonna break your heart broke. That's right. That's what the Knicks do to me. That's what the Cowboy's gonna do to you. That's right. Now. We can talk about sports all day, But you got a book out, an amazing book, by the way. Now you go into your life about this book. Usually you don't talk about

your personal life at all. We never hear about your personal some of these stories that I've been hearing, I was like, really have no idea, So why did you decide to talk to go so in depth about your personal Well, first of all, the seat that I sit in every day doing first take on the ESPN. You know, I pride myself and my character assassinated people. I talk

about what you do now who you are. But nevertheless, by being in that seat, similar to the seat that y'all have, if you're gonna do something like that, then you know what you owe it to the audience to let them know who you are, where you come from,

what your perspective is, et cetera, et cetera. And I got to give both of y'all props, actually all three of y'all props, because all of y'all have been authors, and the fact that the matter is the kind of lime light that y'all have been in the seat that y'all sit in. When you start writing about something you know you you ultimately feel an obligation to let people know who you are, what you're all about, what your perspectives are. And so to me to see people do that,

I knew that it was. If I was going to write a book, there was only one way I could go about doing it. Ain't know the some damn sports book. It's got to be about me, who I am, how I think, why I came to be, how I am, the way that I think, et cetera. I thought I owed that to the audience, and the only reason I hesitated once I got left Go Let Go by spin of two thousand and nine. In two thousand and eleven, people were coming to me to write a book, and I knew I wanted it to be about, you know,

my life, et cetera, et cetera. And my mother at the time, who had just gotten diagnosed with cancer, one that she lost in twenty seventeen, got rested soul. She said, she made me swear, you will never write this book while I'm alive. I understand why after we reading it, because I'm sure it had to do with your relationship with your father, yes, which I felt like exactly why. Yeah, you addressed the topic most men don't discuss enough, and

that is our relationship with our fathers. How difficult was it to explore that topic? It was hard. And the reason why it was hard it wasn't the writing process. It was the editing process, which y'all all know. You know, you write it, but they look at it the editing processes. So when they're editing, it's calling upon you to revisit and revisit over and over and over again. And I didn't wait until the book was finished to like show it to my sisters. I got four older sisters, and

I didn't wait until the book was finished. When I wrote those specific chapters, I sent it to them and they didn't talk to me for two weeks. And I thought they were originally upset. They weren't upset. They were just saying, we had buried these memories a long time ago. And they said, and you brought it back up. We don't.

We ain't knocking you for it. We understand, but it just hurt a lot to revisit some of those experiences because we had buried them for the longest time, and the details that you had they couldn't believe that I remembered because I reminded them, and they were like, yeah, this happen, this happened. That happened. No hero, Yeah, my dad he wasn't. I feel like the things you said about him in the book are the things you wanted to say about him at his funeral. Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah, Um,

I told him to his face. I didn't say anything in a book that I didn't tell him to his face, So let me be clear about that. In twenty eighteen, he passed away, fourteen months after my mother passed away. And when he passed away, I called my sister Carmen the morning of his funeral, and they had mapped out the funeral, and you know, the pastor was gonna give the cermony, he was gonna eulogize him, all this stuff, and I said, I'm doing the eulogy, and Karmen was like, God, no, Steve,

please please, Steve, don't do this. Don't do this. She said, what are you gonna say? I said, you'll find out when you get to the funeral and she's like, Steve, don't do this. What would mommy want? What would mommy want? You know what mommy would say? Said, I got it, and I was gonna go in and I was gonna literally say everything that you see in the book. And and I peo. I called paste Arperna something told me to call him. You know, I've been going to see CC.

I have no pastor Banar for thirty years. And so I said, let me call him. And I called him and told him what I was feeling. And he was like, you right to feel that way. I'm very familiar with your story. He said, You're not wrong. He said, but the Bible talks about God's grace and God's mercy, and he said, and you might want to think about that before you decide to speak your truth. And when I

eulogized my father, I went up. I went up on the stage after everybody gave all the paudables, all of you know, all all the nice things, the pleasant trees they had to say about him, and I walked up in the first words out of my mouth was, that's y'all, memories of him, memories of my family. We have an entirely different story. And I saw my cousin Derek kill over like oh no, please. And I saw my brother in Lay. I was like, oh lord, he's about to

go in. And I saw a neighbors that were in the audience that I hadn't seen in years that just showed up for my dad's funeral, and they were like, literally lipsacred to me, Please, please don't do this. And I said, my father was not a good man, I said. But then I brought up my mother. I said, my mother knows nothing about sports. I'm Steve and A I worked for ESPN. The world knows, the sports world knows who I am. My mother says, EPs and whatever it is,

I don't know. But she didn't even know the letters, I said. But she knew what a home run was, she knew what a or no hit it was. She knew what a stolen base was. She knew it because of him, Because she loved my father so much that she knew baseball because of him. I said, So there evidently was something very special about him to have a

woman like my mother. And then I talked about a lot of the happy moments that he gave us and then I ended it by saying, at the end of the day, he's still my dad and I love him, and I don't think I would have gotten to that point if it wasn't for Alborno. What made you change your perspective of how to talk about him for the book was because you could add more context, because I

could add the full context. And not only that, I owe it if I'm gonna write it, you know, but then you know they I didn't know it was gonna be like seventy eight to eighty thousand words, but I literally wrote ninety thousand words. I wrote the book myself, and when no ghostwriting, it was me. I wrote this book. I did the audio. There was another voice, it was me, and I just said, if I'm going to do this,

then I owe it to everybody. I mean, and you know, because of the business that I'm in, I imagine talking to you, you or you. I can see the questions, you know, because I'm experienced enough to know what's coming. I know what I would ask, I know what I would think about, and I wanted to make sure that I left no doubt as to where I stood. And you know what I was trying to say, and that's

what I did. And I have a question. So, even even though obviously you know how you felt when you were writing the book, because it was your thoughts and feelings, was there a sense of like that therapeutic element, like you know, and people actually put the words on paper and write it down and read it and look at it. A lot of authors say like it's a form of therapy. It's like I finally got it out in my head and on the paper. Possibly, So I'm not I'm not.

I'm not saying that I didn't feel that way, but there was a bigger emotion coming from it, La la I. When you know, when my mother passed away, I was a mama's boy. I loved the dearly. We were very tight, and I was devastated for a long time. What I would tell you is while everybody else around us was very sad, the emotion that I had was fury. And the fury that I had was that, you know, this is five years ago. I got my first big contract

from the ESPN in twenty fifteen. I got the second one in twenty twenty three, years after she passed away. But I was there and I knew that I was in a position where obviously I could give to her, But I was getting to a position where it was so much more that I could give to this woman who had done everything for us and worked two jobs sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, one week's vacation a year for twenty plus years because she had

to because he wouldn't do his job. And so because of that, to see her in the grave before him, and to see her deprived, she was seventy six years old. My mother was at a point where let her go on a couple of cruises a year and she's in heaven. Well, obviously I'm in a position to do more than that for her, and so for me, for her to pass away,

I was furious. So when it came time for his funeral, it it just galled me, the thought of everyone showing up to celebrate someone who had taken so much away from her. He took away from us too, But that's all right. Stuff happens. Nobody's perfect. Mistakes, deal happened. But when it came to my mother's a different kind of animal. You can make mistakes in life and a relationship to fall apart. I'm man enough to say, Okay, that's your all business. Longer you ain't put your hands on my mother.

We good, that's you'all business. What was unforgivable to me was not paying any bills, allowing her to work the hours you were supposed to be working, to have the obligations you were supposed to have, supposed you're supposed to take off. Said you had a conversation with him, when you had the conversation before he died, what was his reasoning? Well, this was years early. I would tell you about five

years earlier. We were in my dining room, were in my mother's dining room, and my father was one of those dudes that were stubborn to the end that he didn't he never saw that he was wrong until he absolutely had to. And so he's in there and his older brother, my uncle Freddie, was sitting next to him, and my father was like, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. You don't realize what I've done for you. I said, you haven't done anything for me.

You know, you haven't done anything for me. Don't give him too much of the book now, right exactly? And I said, and I said that, and you know, he started arguing with me and my uncle Freddie looked at him and he said, by Soul. That was his middle name, by Soul, And he said, shut the fuck up. He said, this is Stephen. He's a journalist for a living. You know, he knows what you what you haven't have not done Chapter in verse, you have no shot. Just be quiet.

And my father just sat back and just took it, and I just I just left it alone from there. You know, I think the relationship with your father the most important part of the book because it opens up so much other stuff, Like you talk about how watching your father and your mother's relationship made you never want to get married. Yeah, and you talked about things in the book. I didn't know. I didn't know you had

two baby mamas. How didn't you gonna feel about that? Well, well, first of all, I don't expect them to like it, because it's the one thing that my mother was ashamed of of my entire life. I've been on this earth fifty five years. She passed away when I was forty nine, going on my fiftieth birthday, and that was the only thing that my mother was ever ashamed of before because I wore you know, I had condoms on lock, like like like credit cards. It was like, I didn't leave

home without them. You know, I was never going to compromise myself by putting myself in that position, and then I lost my way and so because of that, you know, my mother was like, Okay, so now that you did, you screw this up. She said, there's only way one way you can make up for it. You have to be the best father that you could possibly be. You have to make sure what you made a promise to me about from the time that you was sixteen years old,

that you will never be like your father. She said, that's what I expect, and so be since that moment in time. That's why I when Kobe passed to win, everybody's told about that girl dad, that girl Dad's like it resonated with me in a very significant way, because I mean, my daughters are everything to me and so you know, and I've always lived by this philosophy. But it's the same with my mom. It was with my mom as it is with my daughters. You know, I

think I'm not comfortable unless they comfortable. I don't need less, they eat, don't I don't go on vacation until they go on vacation. I don't live a passion of fluent life unless they live in it. I make sure that they're taking care of first. And the thing that I was that I shamed her with is also the things that I've made her very proud about. She was very proud of the father that I am, and I'm very proud of the father that I strive to be. It's

a never ending process. I am not looking forward to growing, you know, growing older with two daughters, thinking about the man I once was before I became a daddy, you know, praying and hoping that they don't run in to a young stephen A. Um, you know, I'm definitely, I'm definitely that dude. But I'm also very very happy and very proud of the father I am, and having two beautiful daughters has made me a much better man and a much better human being and far far, far more compassionate

than I ever thought i'd be. And I know we don't got much time because you gotta get the state due first take, But it's so much just skip ever get in trouble for anything, he said on first take, because you talk about the times, or you can you talk about the time that you got in trouble on first take, and I'm like, well, Skip had crazy opinions too, and the opinions you had weren't necessarily like I never suspension. I never recalled Skip getting in trouble. Wow ever um

in terms of a suspension or anything like that. Um. When I got suspended, I was furious. I did not believe I deserved it. I was pissed off to the highest degree because I just thought that, you know, it was made into something that it wasn't. And so for me, whatever my opinions are, I don't mind anybody coming at me about that. This is what we feel about what you said. It's when they try to branch it out and turn it into something that it was not. That's

what pisses me off. Because what happens is when you have Disney Disney. And I'm not knocking Disney for this at all. Listen, man, we got stockholders, got shareholders, you got people to apiece, and so you got to pay attention to everybody. You ain't after black white and hispanic appeal.

You have to mass appeal. You want it all. And so as a result of that, you have to pay attention to everything and everybody, And so when that noise is made, my boss at the time felt compelled to respond to the noise, and when he got suspended forty eight hours earlier, he told me I wasn't gonna be suspected, and then you know, he turned around spend to me, And so for me, it was I've learned a lot, I'm a lot better and what I try to do. And all of y'all can attest to this. At one

time or another, We've all had private conversations. I whispered something in y'all ear about something to watch out for. I'm very, very big about these are the mind fields watch out because what I'm saying is, as a product of corporate America, somebody that's been in corporate America for over thirty years, I kind of know where the mind fields are. And so as a result of that, I might see cats on the come up that I think is going to be in my position or an even

higher position. And I'm saying, come in, let me make sure I tip you off to this. Watch out for this, watch out for this, watch out for that, because I want y'all to succeed. I don't want y'all to field who the hell wants to be successful alone. Oh lja. It shocked me too. But he listen, he he walked off the sets that I ain't coming back until my man comes back on because he knew it was wrong too. But I was really shocked that he took that position.

I certainly didn't ask him too, and I'm appreciative of that. Doesn't mean I mean, shoot, we still disagree ninety nine percent of the time, but I did appreciate the fact that he took that position on my behalf. I was gonna say, who the worst fans are they? Cowboy fans that skip fans or the Navy fans Cowboy fans. Nobody's worse. Nobody's worse. But I will tell you I would tell the Navy got at you a little bit. First of all, let me be very very clear, I don't give a damn.

I want to be very very clear about that doesn't phase me, It really really doesn't. I'm just after you've known you know me for years. I'm just built that way. Rihanna, if she had a problem, that would have bothered me, not her fans. I want I challenge anybody to tell me one negative thing I said about that wonderful performing young lady, I no nuance to it, and you just said nat. You said Rihanna doesn't perform as well. Let me give you any time. Let me give you, let

me hook you up on the inside. Sherry Shepherd's team. I'm promote my book last Tuesday, Sherry Shepherd's team comes up to me and they said, since you're here, we want to debate like format. We want to have fun with it. I said, okay, bring it, no problem. I didn't know what they were gonna ask, right, but the problem so I'm expecting a debate, right, And I knew that.

I was just in the room talking about Beyonce because one of my all time favorite performance Beyonce with Bruno Mars and cold Play is one of my favorite now obviously Jay, you know Doctor Dre and snooping him last year. I mean that, I mean Lord Ha Mercy, I mean I'm mad I wasn't there, but that's I think that Beyonce might be the greatest female performer of all time. That's how I feel about it. I think Rihanna's fantastic. I think Rihanna's fantastic. By the way, both of them

got my money because I bought both albums. Okay, So my attitude was Rihanna's great, but I'm thinking you got a lot to live up to because there's only one Beyonce. Now you agree, fine, you disagree? Fine, How we get to the point why he got a pit two black women? Again? Really? I can't, I can't. I just can't be a fan both. But I prefer Beyonce over Rihanna. That's a crime. Now, And I didn't know that. In your book you talk about learning lessons, yes, and you have gotten in trouble

for that before when you pushul Curry against Savantage. That's right. Listen first of all this yeah, ye, fair question, la la, And I'm gonna I'm gonna talk. I didn't know. I didn't know that. Yes, yes, let me explain what happened. So Steph Curry is in Game six of the NBA Finals. Lebron and Kyrie are coming. They won Game five after Draymond got suspended, bo getting Eagle Dollar got hurt. They win game five. Game six, they coming at Golden State.

They're down twelve with about four minutes left and Steph Curry fouls out. Steph Curry pulls out his mouthpiece, tries to throw head to the official. But missus it's a fan by accident. Blah blah blah, i Issia Curry goes ballistic. What y'all may not have known was that. And I love i Usia Curry, I mean, and no problem, no throwing, no shade on her whatsoever. I'm just telling what happened. Prior to the game, she had tweeted that she was

upset because they were backed up in traffic. Now, Jay Z and Beyonce were coming to the game, but nobody knew. So the Cleveland a reader and the Gundery or whatever it was, right, the quickest Loans a reader, they held up the traffic. So she was mad about that and was talking about how the wives and the family or the players for Golden State would being inconvenienced. She complained

something else about the officiating blah blah blah. So crazy, but stop so so so what happened is that she did that and then she went off after Steph Curry, you know, fouled out all of that other stuff. What I said was, you are representing your man at that particular moment in time. Anything that you do, it's not you, it's the wife of him. And so because of that, you have to guard yourself and be careful. Skip comes back at me and says, oh, please, you know what

are you talking about? Blah blah blah blah, And I'm jumping in like, wait a minute, you will get on Lebron about anything. How all of a sudden this escapes you. You know what I'm saying. So that's how the whole Savannah Aisha thing came up, because what I was saying was if this was Lebron, you would have found an excuse to jump on him. And we all know that Savannah is phenomenal. So when are you talking about? That's

all I was saying. My regret was at the same time, I didn't say, you are Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton. You cannot get yourself into some nonsense because she running for the president. You understand you can't be out there messing up because it's going to bring attention to her while she's trying to win the presidency. I didn't bring that up because I wasn't thinking about that in a moment.

But I'm only bringing that up as an example that I should have mentioned because I wasn't trying to make an agenda thing. I'm saying, if if la LA is in a public position, if you or you are in a public situation in the moment and there's a tension that some your spouse or your significant other could potentially bring to you that could detrimental, that that can make a detrimental to what you're trying to accomplish. They can't get in the way of that. That's all I was

trying to say. I've been in that position. The thing is that also nobody in this room has been married to an NBA player before. Day in and day out, You're hearing about things that are going on. You're getting

invented to about everything. You have emotions, You act off emotions sometimes, so every night you're hearing about this whatever's being said, and it's just building up and you get protective and then something just set you off and you want to say something because you realize your spouse has

continuously taken the high road. I said earlier, I remember a time we talked about it before you came, when I think I treated something at Skip Bayliss because I was like, yo, enough with the mellow slander every single day and he's not saying anything, and I'm just like this is enough because now it's affecting the household, it's affecting the mood, it's affect so it becomes a bigger thing. That's like, somebody got to say something. Now. Is it

a right time and place for those things? Of course, But when you care about somebody, when you're protective, and when you're competitive, we're all competitors, and you act off emotion, you say things that might not be the right time the right place, but at that time you're not thinking like that. That's absolutely true. And my point is is that I didn't blame how Esha Curry for anything. You know, I was saying in that moment, you can't do that.

I've never said a word about her prior to that, right, and so I said that. And when I said that, horror response was you paid two black women against each other? And I was like, what how we get to that? So that we did? Whether you realize it or not, Okay, fine, I didn't look at it that way, but that's fine. If you're saying that I did, okay, well, then now I'll correct it. So what happens is I go back to the office and a few days later, after the

finals is over, and It's like a damn Morgue. Executives are walking around the head. I'm like, what did happened? And they were like, man, what you did? It was bad? It was bad. And I find out weeks later the sports Center, the six o'clock Sports Center that was supposed to be given to me. I was supposed to host First Take in the morning and the six o'clock Sports Center by myself at night. And it was taken away from me because of that. So what's gonna be taken

away from you because of Rihanna? Nothing? Nothing, and you know something and and and if it ever does find because at the end of the day, there's a level of authenticity that has to come with what we do. I'm gonna be me, damn it. That's how I feel. I did not say a negative word about Rihanna. I think she's sensational. I'm just to Beyonce fan. When you go into your I don't care. And if anybody tells me differently, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna even discuss

it because you're lying. We go home. We all got our favorite artists, we all have our favorite actors and actresses, we all have that there's a particular show we like watching more than others. There's a particular particular music we like listening to more to others. It doesn't mean that we don't like this person, this person, and that person. It just means we have our favorites. That is not a crime. And then they playing context. There was no contact.

But I didn't know I would have to. How did I know this was gonna happen? You gotta remember you living this world. I'm doing sports. I didn't even know. Did you know that I didn't know about Navy until last week? Really, I had no I don't care about that. What I cared about, To be honest with you, the one concern that I had was right on this show when Angela I was talking about why are we pinting two black women to get Oh my god, I'm glad I wasn't here that morning because I'm like, what the

hell are you talking about? So if I sit up there and I listen, I'm not apologizer for this. For example, there's a lot of people that I like. There's a lot of women that I know that are cool people. I don't like too many people more than I like La La La. LA's always known that I ain't apologizing for it to anybody. But if you say more than now, you can't listen. I'm not gonna do like somebody. I don't feel like. You don't know. If I sit up there and I say you ugly, you gotta stick attitude,

I don't like you. That's different. If I sit up there and saying, look, you know you sensational woman, but you ain't la la damn, that might be something you got to get over. You got to get over that. You know what I'm saying. I mean, listen, listen. I'm not a lot of people. So what somebody says Stephen that you ain't know Kendrick Perkins, So what that's your opinion. Last time I check, the check still comes. I still got my job. I'm still going to work every day.

I'm still the number one show. You can tell that. I mean, you can say what you want to say. It doesn't it doesn't affect me. Now. If you sat up there and say you ain't, that's a different time

of it. That's a different conversation. But if I if you have someone that you prefer more than me, so what but so because so do you just feel like in your position you really just cannot care what anyone thinks about you, because I feel like people always want to say like, I don't care what anybody But there is a point that everyone does care and everyone has a place where they truly do want to be. But I'm not saying I don't care about what people think

in general, lah Lah. I'm saying there are certain things we can't care about because we know it's not as unfair and as inhumane as people are trying to make it out to be. If I sat up there and I disrespected Rihanna and I said I don't care, that's a problem because she doesn't deserve that. She's home, she's a new mom, she's a beautiful artist, she's doing her things. Most people would dream to have the life that she's had. She's earned it. I got nothing but mad lover and

respect for her. If I said something disrespectful like that and I didn't care, that's a problem. That's a lack of humanity. I would never do that. What I'm saying is it's not a crime to say I'm a huge Beyonce fan. There is only one and you are about to go on the same stage. She has blessed not once, but twice, and there is a standard to live up a bar. There's nothing wrong. You come on first take. I'm sorry, y'all, there's a bar that's been set. I've

said it. You come on breakfast Club, there's a bar that's been set. Y'all said it. You do what the things that all the different things that you're doing with power and now being method. I'm seeing you, I'm watching what you're doing. You know you continue to ascend. Well, damn everybody can't measure up to you. Now, that doesn't mean they're whack. That doesn't mean they're not gifted. It means they're not you. You got you gotta line in the book that kind of sums that up. You say

on first take. We capitalize on the kind of polarization people supposedly at phor what's the word I believe So I'm trying to remember. I mean, I read it, I read it eleven times. But in terms of what like what you're discussing like, it's the kind of polarization. You know, people act like they don't life, but when we do it all the time. But what I'm saying is this, you you wake up and you pay attention we all

do it. You have a show, you know what's trending, you know what's newsworthy, you know what's percolating and as it was, and not only that, you know who percolates. And so because of that, it determines what subject matter you're going to tackle, because you're not doing the show for you, You're doing the show for the audience you're trying to reach. And I have an audience that has

an expectation as it pertains to content. And so when we're talking about sports and it's me, there's a level of expectation that they have as it pertains to the issues I'm willing to tackle. I'm mindful and cognizant of that, and I operate accordingly. And when somebody questions that, I would remind them I've been number one for eleven years, every month, every year for eleven years, so evidently I kind of have an idea of what people want to see. And hear, all right, no, I know, you gotta go.

I got one more question because it ties into all of this and the No Safety Net chapter. You know, you talk about basically personalities who attack other personalities for things they say. Because you talk about it, I think it was the ray Right scandal last everybody got upset with what you said about that, and I feel the same way. I'm like, man, if you got a microphone in front of you, you're going to say something at

some point that you're going to get backlash. Four. So I don't understand when I see other personalities like calling for other personality to be fired. Can't wait? Yeah, what it is is? And remember this, all three of y'all here, Remember what I'm about to say. When you're winning, they always coming for you, because, unfortunately, particularly in this day and age, their definition of winning the closest they can get to it is knocking you off your perch instead

of creating one for their own. It's inevitable. And and it's just like when he used to call me donkey of the day and all of this other stuff, and people expected me to have a problem with him when I first met you. What did I say? Had no problem with him? Whatsoever? You say? Because he didn't attack me. He attacked what I felt about a particular issue. I

know the difference. They wanted to create that divide. You're not creating that because I'm gonna root for y'all and I want y'all a root for me, and I'm a root for a whole bunch of brothers and sisters to make it. But in the same breath, you have to be real and authentic about what's going on in the moment that it's going on, and do what you can to enlighten folks. If you feel you have an enlightening point of view, that's what you do, and you let

the tips to where they make. People who don't win are real good about doing what you describe. Let them keep doing it because it reminds you that you will winner. Otherwise they wouldn't be talking about you. I want to end it with something that's true because I learned a lot from you and I feel like it's vice versa. I didn't want to say this because I was really sitting here thinking about what we were talking about earlier, and I want to say this. You know, it is important.

Everyone can have an opinion and who you like better, who is your opinion. But I will say this as a black woman, let's acknowledge and celebrate the fact that we have two amazing, talented black women who were able to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Outside of sports fans and players. The majority of people I know that's the reason they watched the Super Bowl, not

for who's playing. They're watching for that halftime show. So let's acknowledge an uplift and applaud the fact that on such a huge forum you had Beyonce and now you have Rihanna as a black woman. I'm proud of that. That's something that makes me proud. That doesn't take away from your opinion on who you like more or whatever whatever, But at that moment, for me, it's about uplifting the fact that we need to celebrate that. Well, let me say, well, let me end up by saying this, I completely agree

with that one thousand percent. And what you're saying and what you would prefer is entirely different than someone throwing out an accusation that my sentiment was making it a divide between we ain't two black women. That's a difference. You're just simply saying they're both great. Let's celebrate them, no problem, no problem whatsoever. That's entirely different than and understanding that they're both the reason that majority people are

even watching. You guys are watching for the sports aspect, and sure, majority people are watching right. But what happens is is that when we question people's intent because they express something differently, what happens is then you didn't lose those folks, those folks that they like that because they're like, oh, here they go with this, and I'm like, no, at the end of the day, Rihanna is phenomenal, and she's got her own army or navy as they say Beyonce,

it's got her crew. They're both fantastic, they both sell out stadiums and arenas. They're both making gobs and gobs of money and they've earned it. Okay, much love and respect to you. Ain't no doubt about it. I'm root for I ain't rooting against her. I'm just a Beyonce fan. I think with these microphones, uh, you know. And it's something that we would debate to the end of time.

Intention versus impact, Yes, because it's a lot of times my intention wasn't to offend, but then somebody like a lot got to be like, nah, you know you offended. You know you impacted that person in a negative way in those moments. You just got an apologize to keep it moving. Yeah, you know, I understand which is which is what I did. But let me be very clear, people didn't like your apologize all that. First of all, Leslie Jones on Comedy sent you so, and she's supposed to.

That's what she does. I wasn't offended by it at all, right, because she's great. I can't hand bro it's there struggling, but I'm fifty five. It ain't like I'm thirty five walking around with five. You know what, if you got it, you know, I might visit. I might hit then I got some time. I might visit here cluff for men, because you know I you know, I don't think I'm Godzilla,

but ain't the most attractive dude the world. But if my headline moved forward, I might have a m that might be hopeful that I got some Manala rice water drops for you. Okay, work it better work. Let me text her right now, because then they're gonna get on me forgetting that as another system, because if it don't work, I'm blaming. I'm blaming you. Right now, I'm just telling you, I'm blaming. I'm blaming. You're recommending this for me. That's

exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm telling you that right now. I'm telling you that right now. I appreciate y'all, thank you so much. I just want to tell you one last thing. You know, we have a new studio, okay, so now we have the option to go to you when we need some questions. So next time next season, the Cowboys start losing and I need to go to you for some backup or some like a zoom call right right to that camp. We could put pat you right in. I got you, and you could just I'm

killing you. I got you. I got boy going to the super Bowl next year. I can tell you I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it's the back can't. I can't. Y'all. Ridiculous, man, ridiculous