Apparently, there is a way to get Stephen A Smith to unwind his takes.
All the way back in February, after the Super Bowl, Smith made an offhand comment on First Take, giving the verbal equivalent of a side-eye to retired tennis legend Serena Williams, who appeared during the halftime show alongside rapper Kendrick Lamar. Atop the shared Compton heritage of both Williams and Lamar, many fans connected the dots that Williams specifically appeared during the hit beef track “Not Like Us” to throw dirt on the grave of Drake, Lamar’s opponent in a long-lasting beef, and Williams’ supposed ex.
Referencing this dynamic on First Take, Smith tossed out that if he were married to Williams, he would tell her to “go back to his a**.”
When Williams’ real-life husband appeared on the show this week to promote an event, he addressed the comments with Smith.
“I think you had some marriage advice for me, is that right?” Ohanian said to Smith, who was hosting the show remotely.
Smith was caught off guard in the moment, but he addressed the situation more fully in an interview on The Pivot podcast released Friday. The longtime ESPN host admitted he spoke out of turn and clarified that he intended to comment on men and marriage more broadly, not Williams or Ohanian specifically.
“I should not have said it this way, I’ll concede that. But going to commercial, joking around, I said, ‘Take your a** back to him,’” Smith said.
“All I was saying is as men, if I’m married, if my wife got the energy and the fervor to show up in Super Bowl Sunday and go out onstage specifically to dance off of a song that’s disrespecting her ex, my question would be, ‘What’s that energy about?’ You’re supposed to be happy with me.”
Smith also said that if he had been in the room with Ohanian, he would have owned his mistake and apologized.
“I don’t think that he’s wrong for taking it differently,” he explained. “And to his face, I would have said to him what I just said … and I would own that and I would apologize.”
Further detailing that he aimed to relate to the audience and express shock that Williams so comfortably addressed an old ex, Smith also delivered an apology to Williams.
“I’m not casting aspersions on Serena Williams in any way, and I apologize to her as well,” Smith added. “I didn’t mean it the way it was taken, I was just speaking from a man’s perspective.”
After apologizing, Smith issued a plea to the audience and anyone who comes across his content not to be so disingenuous about these types of comments. Smith believes that the average person likely understood his point and did not receive it as personal toward Williams or Ohanian. While he still owed the couple an apology, he said he speaks with plenty of people privately after viral comments who agree with him but do not defend him.
The incident blew over quickly, both in February and again this week. So it is not as if this will be the one-off line that dooms Smith’s career.
However, he does have a point that audiences appear more eager than ever to strip context away when it comes to a commentator’s history or the broader conversation within a show. Being one of the more prolific hosts in media, Smith makes his fair share of mistakes. But he is also very susceptible to soundbites and viral clips that can snowball beyond his intention.