Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx is playing defense for beleaguered NBA player Ben Simmons after ESPN host Stephen A. Smith unleashed a blistering condemnation of Simmons as the “weakest” and most “pathetic” athlete he’s ever seen.
Foxx, who is an avid sports fan and was a star quarterback for his high school football team in the Dallas metropolitan area, felt some kind of way watching Smith take a blowtorch to the career of the much-maligned Simmons. The player reportedly filed a $20 million grievance despite not playing for the Philadelphia 76ers in 2021-22, nor for the Simmons’ team, the Brooklyn Nets was traded to in February 2022.
When Simmons said he would finally play after taking the year off, and then reversing his decision due to his alleged back pains, Smith went volcanic on Simmons.
“Ben Simmons might also be the weakest, most pathetic excuse for a professional athlete we have ever seen in, not just American history, but the history of sports,” Smith said after the Nets announced Simmons would miss Game 4 of the Nets’ series against Boston, where they got swept out of the playoffs. “I can’t think of a professional athlete that has come across more pathetic than this man.”
Foxx, 54, took umbrage at the ferocity of Smith’s verbal annihilation of Simmons on national TV, saying that Smith, 53, crossed the line.
“That is completely unfair @bensimmons has a family this man has people that love him and this man just plays basketball but to be dragged through the mud like this is unfair,” Foxx wrote in the comment section of ‘The Shade Room’s post on Instagram.
“And why is it @stephenasmith you only go at basketball players. You [are] completely mute when it comes to the Tom Bradys [and] the Aaron Rodgers of the world. You get where I’m going … stop it bruh, it’s out of bounds,” he wrote.
Smith responded on the “First Take” show that he cohosts by saying Foxx was wrong.
“Like I told Jamie Foxx on the phone that he’s wrong, like I told him to his face that he’s wrong, I’m going to tell him on national television that he’s wrong!” Smith said during the segment, adding that he and Foxx are friends.
Listen to the rest of Smith’s response to Foxx below:
