ESPN’s flagship personality Stephen A. Smith stepped his foot in a cultural landmine when he posed the question if Kim Kardashian is a “prostitute” and her manager-mother Kris Jenner is a “pimp.”
Most fans know that the Kardashian family’s billion-dollar empire was mostly built off of the sex tape that Kim K and Ray J filmed in the early 2000s, which catapulted the reality show family into the stratosphere of global fame. Jenner’s image and reputation as a ruthless, conniving “pimp” were heightened when Ray J later accused the matriarch of negotiating a multimillion-dollar deal with porn companies to release her daughter’s porn video.
Smith revisited the topic with a post and on his show this past weekend.
Smith, the 56-year-old host of the popular daytime talk show “First Take,” made the situation worse when he blamed the Twitter post on a “clerical error,” yet then talked extensively on the subject during “The Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast.
The famously bombastic sports personality, who is notorious for his penchant for debating sports at high decibels, tried to moonwalk back his original stance about the Kardashians when he was lightly chastised by NBA player Patrick Beverly.
Clerical error bro. You are absolutely right. That is being corrected right now as we speak. And for the record, I don’t think of @KimKardashian that way nor would I ever speak of her or any woman that way, which I’ve stated. That’s for checking that issue. https://t.co/PYYAen6mPZ
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) July 29, 2023
Fans don’t believe Smith when he said he didn’t mean to denigrate the Kardashians because he appropriated a great portion of his show — which begins about halfway through the below episode — to the famed family’s empire.
Check it out and then observe some of the responses on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/KareemIssa_/status/1685161692114620416
Is Kim K a sex worker?? Whoops my bad that’s a spelling error, I meant is she a hard worker??
— Chris Lorenzo (@chrisalorenzo1) July 29, 2023
