Manny Pacquiao put his foot in his mouth earlier this week when he made homophobic comments about the gay community. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for a backlash to occur, forcing Pacquiao to give an apology. However, it looks like his apology was too little too late because reports have revealed that he’s now lost a major endorsement deal over his homophobic comments.
According to media reports, the trouble all began earlier this week when Pacquiao gave an interview and compared gay people to animals.
“Will you see any animals where male is to male and female is to female? The animals are better,” Pacquiao said in the interview. “They know how to distinguish male from female. If we approve [of] male on male, female on female, then man is worse than animals.”
Immediately after news of the interview broke, angry fans were in an uproar and cried foul against Pacquiao. Pacquiao eventually decided to post a trinity of videos on his Instagram page and apologized to the LGBT community for his comments. However, he also claimed that he was standing by his thoughts on same-sex marriage.
“I’m sorry for hurting people by comparing homosexuals to animals. Please forgive me for those I’ve hurt. I still stand on my belief that I’m against same sex marriage because of what the Bible says, but I’m not condemning LGBT. I love you all with the love of the Lord. God Bless you all and I’m praying for you,” Pacquiao wrote in the caption.
Well, it appears that Nike, who Pacquiao has been working with since 2006, wasn’t happy with their sports star’s comments and they released a statement announcing that they’d terminated their contract with him.
“We find Manny Pacquiao’s comments abhorrent. Nike strongly opposes discrimination of any kind and has a long history of supporting and standing up for the rights of the LGBT community. We no longer have a relationship with Manny Pacquiao,” said Nike in the statement.
According to media reports, sources say Pacquiao and his team were trying to save his lucrative endorsement deal with Nike and that Pacquiao personally tried to convince Nike to keep him on their roster of stars. However, Nike decided to drop him anyway.
In 2016, you’d think celebs would know better than to make homophobic comments, but clearly that isn’t the case. Let this be a lesson to other celebs: be careful about bashing other people, especially when you have a major endorsement deal on the line.
